Stepney Children's Fund

At the time, Bob Le Vaillant was a serving Army Warrant Officer in the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall.

A number of projects were established and developed in partnership with national youth organisations, Metropolitan Police, local schools and caring agencies.

Projects included Tower Hamlets/Central London County Scoutreach, Youth Outreach Special Summer Camps and Schoolchildren’s Day Camps, Youth Crime Diversion Befriending Scheme, Parent’s Support, Young Leader Training and Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Scheme and a national programme of social awareness lectures, fundraising and volunteer recruitment.

[citation needed] In the mid 1980s and on the invitation and sponsorship and full involvement of Christopher James, 5th Baron Northbourne, who later became the Fund's Chairman and a Toynbee Hall Trustee, Bob Le Vaillant set up a programme of Special Summer Camps running each year on the Northbourne Estate in Betteshanger.

Activities relied almost wholly on volunteer leadership which required young men and women to be recruited throughout UK and overseas, as well as through the home-grown 'Young Leader' Scheme.