"I guess I got in with the wrong crowd, and became involved in soft drugs and stealing. I wasn't happy with myself, went off the rails, and reacted badly to the way teachers talked down to me. By the time I was 15 and in my GCSE year, I'd missed so much school I was told I couldn't do my exams and had to go on an alternative education programme.

"I was asked if I was interested in going for 10 hours a week to a place called Interplay, where I could learn about how to use a recording studio, play music, and find out about radio and film skills. I'd do that alongside English and Maths classes and working at a workshop, stripping down musical instruments for repair."

Tom says that from the first moment he arrived at Interplay, which is based in an old church building in Armley, Leeds, he felt at home and accepted. "At school your opinion didn't matter; you were constantly undermined. Here, for the first time, people listened to what you thought."

Through Interplay's Tools For the Trade programme, Tom worked alongside industry professionals to learn sound recording and music production. Having played guitar and dabbled in using music software for a few years, the programme was playing to what for him was a natural leaning.

"All schools teach you about music is the stuff that's in books," says Tom, who's now 19. "They don't tell you about how the industry works, as they do here."

During the first year of contact with Interplay, which is funded chiefly by the Arts Council and Education Leeds, his life began to settle down. His first short film, Screaming Silence, was screened at the Young Filmmakers Festival in Bradford. He made such a success of his time there that he was asked to take part in further programmes, as a paid part-time mentor to younger people, some of whom are in care or are young offenders. He also went back into mainstream education, took his exams, and realised he did have aspirations, not necessarily to carve out a glittering and lucrative media career, but to have a profession, a family and a good home. "Before I didn't want anything, and couldn't see anything to get up for in the morning a lot of the time. Through the work I do at Interplay now I can see some of myself in young people who are like I was back then."

When she was 12 years old, Victoria White's family moved from a village near York to Leeds. Victoria never felt she fitted in at her big new school. After bullying problems and poor attendance, she was excluded and sent to a pupil referral unit, where she became increasingly disengaged and depressed. She was also referred to Interplay around that time.

"I'd been made to feel I'd never accomplish anything at school," says Victoria, who is now 16. Her experience of making friends, learning skills and producing a film called The Washing Line Thief at Interplay gave her the confidence to work hard at improving her literacy, take GCSEs and start a performing arts course.

"After hating school, I found that I couldn't wait for the weekend to be over so that I could come and see friends here. I felt part of something worthwhile, learned how to use cameras and edit film, and started to act. I think the most important thing I learned was that I could have a dream." Victoria's dream is that of becoming a professional actor. Letting go of Interplay and moving back into mainstream education has been "exciting and terrifying," she says. "I'd like to stay here forever, but mustn't be selfish. Others need the places more than me now."

Jason Wheelhouse, who's now 21, also experienced bullying at school and responded by becoming disruptive in class. His academic work deteriorated, and he was eventually referred to Interplay. It became a turning point for him, with confidence-building opportunities in music and film eventually switching him back on to other kinds of learning.

"I was excluded from school two or three times. When I started coming here one day a week, I was with some of the boys I'd had trouble with at school. But through the things we did here we got to like each other. We were made to take responsibility for doing things in a disciplined way, organising ourselves like a proper production team or cast and director. It made me grow up."

After doing the Interplay Tools of the Trade programme, Jason went back to college and got A-levels, did a BTech in performing arts and went on to take a degree in Contemporary Performance Practice at Leeds Met University. He works at a building society at the moment, but is determined to pursue an acting career. "I want to appear in a play in the West End. When I think back to where I was a few years ago, with no dream, no plan, no interest in anything, I'm really proud of how far I've got already. I got my degree while doing all sorts of jobs, including cleaning in the evenings. I'm quite a determined person these days."

Among the many impressive community-based projects that go on at Interplay has been a six-month-long film project called LS12 Film, which involved working with 50 disadvantaged and learning-disabled young people to tell their own stories on film.

Working alongside professional scriptwriters and technicians, they produced 13 short films for the Leeds Young People's Film Festival. Their efforts and talent were recognised when the project was highly commended in last week's Clarion Awards, whose previous recipients have included Sir Paul McCartney, Al Gore and The National Theatre.

Such projects bring funding with them, and help community-based and socially inclusive organisations to attract other pots of money. The recognition is long overdue, in a sense, as Interplay has been quietly going about its good work for many years.

The community theatre company based at Interplay was started in the 1970s, says artistic director Steve Byrne, who is an actor, musician and director. There came a point where youngsters hanging around the neighbourhood would hammer on the door and ask what was going on in the building.

Funding was found to do work with young people, and the extended mission of the organisation took off.

"I'm naturally sceptical about all the claims made for the arts and their transformative effect – unless you instill rigour, discipline and engagement," says Byrne. "But there is something about the arts and their power to awaken something inside a person. I know; I'm a secondary modern boy who found that drama opened an important door."

The purpose of Interplay's various programmes isn't to turn every young person it touches into a future media professional. Some are bitten by the bug; some take what it offers, then go on to become plumbers or van drivers; a few drop out.

Focusing on a creative task, approaching it with discipline and the right skills to do it well, and working as a team in a well supported environment seems to work some kind of psychological alchemy of its own for many of the 100-odd teenagers who come through the doors each year, says Byrne. "I think it basically makes them feel they matter," says Byrne.

"A group of eight or nine excluded boys were referred here the other week, and I'd been warned that they were 'really rough'. I told them, as I tell everyone, that we take what we do very seriously and so must they. The odd one threw a tantrum, but generally they just got on with it.

"They're out of the environment where they were doing badly, and in an environment where everyone is equal and their story, if they choose to tell it, is listened to. They can tell it on film or in some other creative way. Whatever they do with their lives later, they tend to leave here with more self-esteem and confidence than when they came. They've really felt part of something."

To find out more about Interplay's work call 0113 263 8556, email info@interplayleeds.co.uk or see the website www.interplayleeds.co.uk