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Youth Clubs and Resources

Youth Clubs

Youth Club Pilot 2019-20

We run a range of activities for young people living in local areas of high deprivation. All our activities are free and we also run special events on a regular basis in conjunction with local community groups. We started our youth clubs as a project funded by the National Lottery. Since then we have delivered skeletal youth services sustainably.

We follow industry best practise when lending our resources to other groups.

Through the pilot project we reached 93 people each week.

31 children had access to 4h of youth provision each week over a period of 5 months. In addition we shared our resources with other groups, enriching at least 1h of activity for an additional 62 people each week. This includes the Bradford Deaf Football Club, over 55s groups, other youth clubs and asylum seekers groups.

Beneficiaries

93

Duration

20 weeks

Locations

6

Average hours of
delivery per week

13

Staff

1

Cost (£) per beneficiary per hour

£2.99

Volunteers

11

Ongoing sustainable beneficiary hours

17,776

Value for money

Over the 5 month project an hour of activity for a beneficiary cost £2.99. Having established mechanisms to continue some aspects of the project sustainably over the next 48 months, the overall cost per beneficiary hour reduces to £0.74, presenting excellent value for money.

Sustainability

Over half the project activities can continue sustainably for 4 years after covid19 restrictions are lifted. There is a dedicated team of volunteers and the general running costs have been minimised so as to be funded by revenues generated from our tutoring activities.

Lessons learned

We identified ways to increase participation from a broader beneficiary base through extensive consultation during the project. Rolling out the pilot will be delayed due to covid-19 but when we get the chance to roll out we will be able to offer even better value for money.

Participants in the project had fun and many felt that this helped reduce their stress and anxiety. Approximately 80% of participants in this project were young people, almost all of which developed interpersonal skills, such as listening to instructions, assertive communication and emotional awareness. Such development helps to bridge gaps, that we have previously identified, and subsequently has an impact on multiple areas of their academic development. Reinforcing friendship groups and improving behaviour were reported by a substantial number of participants and we are exploring ways we can refine the programme so that behaviour improvements are transferred into the home and school environments.

What participants said about the project

"He's started settling down now at home, I just think he needed an outlet. He's always getting in trouble at school but here he gets praise and feels like he's doing well."

Helal Ahmed, Keighley

“They had a lot of fun. A few of the women started playing and before you know it everyone was getting involved and getting really competitive!”

Christine Harvey, Bradford

"We love the bouncy castle"

Madeeha and Mariam, Bradford

Adapting for covid

We knew the covid lock down would detrimentally impact on the well-being of the children and young people we serve. So, we quickly adapted our youth provision to bring the fund to people's homes. We designed activity boxes full of craft material and distributed them once a month to around 20 homes, serving around 39 children (and their parents!). Children made some fantastic items. We held the youth club online every week for an hour, with an average attendance of 24 children.

Beneficiaries got to see their friends, chat to each other and deliver a 'show and tell' piece for the rest of the group. It helped them build confidence and it was great fun. Even the parents got involved!

The online youth club lasted until mid August 2020. Since then we re-opened our sessions in a covid secure way in line with government guidance.

Without the support and flexibility from the Community Fund this project, and our covid adaptations, would not have been possible.

Ongoing Youth Activities

We've learnt a lot about how to structure our youth club provision to generate amazing employability and well-being outcomes for the children and young people we work with. We also learned about how to maintain these outcomes through a blended approach of door step engagement coupled with online delivery.

With covid restrictions negatively impacting on both the well-being of children and young people and the accessibility of youth provision, we believe it is more important now than ever before, to deliver accessible, safe youth provision to support young peoples' well being and have fun.

Now is the time for community groups to pull together. So, we're sharing the lessons we've learnt with selected BAME led organisations across West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester. As a result we've helped several groups design provisions, successfully gained almost £100,000 in funding to deliver them, and now work collaboratively with these partners to ensure young people are getting the services they need. We continue to work with other organisations as well, in the spirit of sharing our skills and expertise, to help ensure covid-secure services continue to be accessible for children and young people.