TALENTED teenagers have given a sexual assault referral centre a colourful makeover to help victims feel more comfortable at a traumatic time.

The youngsters, all students at Worcester College of Technology, responded sensitively and at times ingeniously to a demanding brief from leaders at the Glade at Bransford, near Worcester, to spruce up the centre in a way that relaxed women, men and children who have been through a horrific ordeal.

Their designs were officially unveiled at the centre at a celebration event attended by many of the 13 design students who made it all possible. They are Steph Johnson, Hannah Tunstall, Luke Ram-dehal, Jake Crewe, Callum McDonald, Callum Clay, Sophie Worboys, Abbie Law-rence, Jack Neville, Louis Baerentzen, Laura Taylor, Nicole Smith and Josh Higham.

College principal Stuart Laverick saw the finished work and said: “It was a very important brief in that they had to understand the sensitivity of the images that were going to work in the different spaces.”

Between them they decorated five rooms – the adult pre-examination room, the child pre-examination room, the playroom and the adolescent after care room. The rooms are scheduled to be renamed following the makeover which involved the team producing sketches and then designs on computer before beginning the hard work which took about five weeks and was completed on a voluntary basis.

The students worked be-tween 9.30am and 3pm on Tuesdays to complete the work which used relaxing themes, including fish and hot air balloons to create a calm and less clinical atmosphere to each of the rooms. Stencils and small brushes were used to achieve the finer detail.

Emma Durmaz, clinical manager and forensic nurse examiner at the centre, said she just wanted the centre to be as “lovely as possible” for the people who need to use it and the students had worked hard to achieve this.

She said: “It’s going to make a big difference. They have put a lot of thought into it.”

The centre, funded by West Mercia Police and the NHS, offers confidential advice, counselling, screening for sexually transmitted infections, forensic medical examination, emergency contraception and pregnancy testing, ongoing long-term support and also liaises between the victims of sexual assaults and the police.