Young people from Chelsea Football Club's Prince's Trust Scheme were guests of honour at the club's training ground recently, joining John Mikel Obi to celebrate the completion of their 12-week personal development course.

The club has been working with the Trust since 1999 and in that time the club has supported more than 25 Team programmes helping over 300 young people, including six former participants currently working with club's community department and the Stamford Bridge hotel.

This year Chelsea has been supporting a wide range of Prince's Trust initiatives, including behind the scenes tours, exercise sessions, workshops, providing signed merchandise and match tickets, offering work experience and the use of our study support centres.

The programme culminated in today's visit to Cobham where the youngsters enjoyed a coaching session and a healthy eating workshop but the ultimate prize was the opportunity to interview our young midfield star John Mikel Obi.

The player visit was part of the Creating Chances initiative, the Premier League's flagship programme to highlight the work of the 20 clubs.

Mikel was delighted to help out: 'It's great that Chelsea are involved with things like this that give kids a chance to help themselves and to get away from the street, drugs and crime. I love things like this and players really enjoy getting involved.'

Marion Walker from the Prince's Trust Football Programme said: 'Football has the ability to unite people from all different backgrounds and communities and develops key skills such as confidence, teamwork and communication which are all required in the world of work.

'The Prince's Trust is really pleased to be working with Chelsea FC who have continued to support the Trust by helping the young people we work with to move forward with their lives into education, employment or training. They are a fantastic example of a top club genuinely giving something back to the community and investing in the future of young people.'

The Team programme is a 12-week personal development programme which builds key work place skills such as confidence, motivation, team work and communication. Over the course young people have taken part in a teambuilding residential week, carried out projects which benefit the local community, undertaken work experience and increased their employability by producing up to date CVs as well as identifying their progression routes to employment or education on completion of the programme. The young people also work towards a nationally recognised City and Guilds Qualification and key skill units.

The Prince's Trust Football Initiative helps around 2,000 young people each year, with more than 11,000 young people benefiting from the support of professional clubs.

Almost three in four young people the Prince's Trust supported last year moved into work, education or training with 84% of young people on a football linked programme citing the support from football as a motivating force.