The Teesside Mohawks locked horns with staff and pupils at Dyke House School in Hartlepool yesterday in a basketball match to launch the Reach for Success scheme.

Reach for Success is an innovative strategy, which uses sport and role models to work with young people to promote a positive healthy lifestyle and encourage good citizenship.

Dyke House is a feeder school for the west central area of Hartlepool, which receives Government funding through the New Deal for Communities (NDC) initiative.

Through this project Reach for Success has been awarded funding to develop outreach programmes.

Jon Stonebridge, Hartlepool co-ordinator for Reach for Success, said: "The original idea for our work came through the Safe in Teesside initiative.

The focus was on community safety issues concerning young people in the north Hartlepool area. Coaches from Teesside Mohawks set up an outreach programme in the Friargate Centre aimed at giving disaffected young people an alternative to peer group direction.

"Following the success of this we have decided to expand our activities.

"Dyke House School is part of our New Deal for Communities educational programme."