HSYAReview2024 - Flipbook - Page 7
Bespoke Youth-West Molesey
Skillway
Surrey Clubs for Young People
We are an Anglican church that is
heavily focused on serving the local
community through youth and children’s
work. Although we are a Christian
organisation, many of our projects are
not evangelical as we want our
Community and Youth Hub to be a
space where people of all beliefs are
welcome. We are currently running 10
different youth sessions across 5 days
a week to cater for young people of
different ages and backgrounds. This
includes, a girl’s group, small group
hubs, youth drop-ins, and a music
project. We run sports activity days
during the half term holidays. All our
groups are free and open-access
sessions. We also provide some kind
of free food at each session.
We create opportunities for young
people in our workshops, teaching
them a variety of practical skills and life
skills. Our students are often lacking in
confidence and not engaged with their
academic life. Our skilled staff and
volunteers encourage them to engage
in projects predominantly using wood,
metal, and other creative materials
such as glass. Through this they have
the opportunity to learn new things and
have a different kind of focus.
We initially took HSYA funding for a project
that was aimed at helping the police work
with difficult children in parts of
Spelthorne. We started by funding
Brentford FC community trust to provide
sports coaches in our Thursday evening
clubs to work with the police and the
relevant young people. The take up and
delivery of young people was patchy and
after some months this was discontinued.
We then transferred the balance of funds
to a girls only group that started running in
the Autumn of 2022. In the year to March
2023, we provided around 20 weeks of
provision. We continued to use the
restricted fund to put this work on for most
of the balance of 2023.
We believe that relationship building is
absolutely crucial for curbing anti-social
behaviour and supporting the
vulnerable. It has been noted that there
is an increase in antisocial behaviour
generally due to lack of services for
young people prior to our project
starting 5 years ago. Locally there was
an increase in antisocial behaviour over
the lockdown period with instances of
criminal damage to buildings and
recreational cannabis use much more
noticeable in the area. We would like to
divert young people away from this by
making all of our activities attractive to
young people who might stumble
across us or be referred to us by the
local authority.
The HSYA grant was hugely beneficial
in allowing us to upgrade the tools we
use, this has meant the students can
see the advantage of using more up to
date equipment and learn to use tools
that are contemporary with the working
world. Using more efficient tooling also
enables the students to complete more
complex projects.
We really appreciate the HSYA grant
and the benefits that we can pass on to
our students is immensely valuable.
In terms of impact the original work with
the police was not as we had hoped. But it
did lead to further work to put on a
separate open access session with the
police through the second half of 2023 that
was extremely successful. Unfortunately,
towards the end of 2023 the provision of
staff by the police came to an end and we
are currently looking at how we can staff
this to restart that provision. It is also clear
that the girls group made a material
positive impact during its start in 2022 and
for most of 2023. But perhaps because it
was successful, attendance started to tail
off towards the end of the year and with
our current funding now spent we have
wound this down.
HSYA support has been enormously
helpful in allowing us to build the impact
we are making at Leacroft. We are looking
forward to restarting our second session.
Our Thursday sessions now regularly have
more than 20 attendees and are making a
great contribution.
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