YMCA of the Year 2019

YMCA North Staffordshire

In the past 12 months we have seen YMCA North Staffordshire grow from strength to strength. We have increased our engagement with young people by developing existing work and leading on new and exciting initiatives including:

Accommodation
Increasing our Community Housing stock for young workers by 50%. We now have 34 houses (68 units)

Family work
Increased our range of services offered to children, young people and families. New services include our Supported Lodgings Scheme and we have also expanded our geographical area to include Stafford.

Employment & Skills
Launching our Thrive campaign which seeks to engage business with anything from a starter home pack to sponsoring a young person through University. We have already engaged with 60 plus businesses and secured private investment to support the campaign.

Training & Education
Partnering with Staffordshire University with eight young people and two staff completing the introduction to Higher Education course and three going on to degrees. NCS engaging with over 650 of young people, delivering 53 of social action projects and raising over £10,000.  Delivering the first Youth Ambassador Network across the City, delivering in 80% of secondary schools.

Volunteering
Increasing our volunteer numbers to over 50

Health & wellbeing
Delivered Community Youth Work activities to over 1000 young people

Increased our Y Active membership to 146 members of the community

On top of this we have also Hosted 14 community Meals with the University, SCFC, Staffordshire Fire & Rescue plus many more, feeding over 1500 people at our Youth Campus, Delivered arts, food and sports activities to 500 people over the summer at our family community picnics, increased our footfall on campus by over 20%, supported and secured funding for 19 young people to take part in International Residential to Romania, Srebrenica, Berlin, Canada, Thailand.

As an organisation we have been operating in our local community for 160 years!

In the last 12 months we have started to run the Freedom Programme for women who have survived domestic abuse, for which we receive no formal funding. Materials are provided for all women who want to attend free of charge and are paid for entirely through donations and fundraising.

We have set up the Holly Project for survivors of Child Sexual Exploitation and their families. There is no other project like the Holly Project, as it is run by survivors for survivors.

In addition to these, our supported housing project has worked with at least 40 young people in the local area, including a young man with learning difficulties who has received the High Sherriff of Shropshire’s Citizenship Award, a former tenant who is now a Youth Ambassador who attended the World Council in Thailand and had another tenant accepted as a second Youth Ambassador.

We have also had a young man with us for 4 years, who has overcome severe anxiety and mental health difficulties to become a mental health champion and sits on the local mental health service user forum and has successfully moved on to his own general needs housing. We are also supporting two Year 11 students who are living independently, and a 17 year old with no parental support who is working through an accountancy apprenticeship and managing a tenancy on a very low income. Before coming to YMCA this young man was sleeping on the floor of a local gym.

We have also participated in a number of local events, including the Telford 50 Carnival with our CEO dressed as a giant cupcake, West Mercia Police Exploitation Training and held local community clean up events.

We have also recruited a Complex Needs Worker through the lottery funded Shine Project, headed up by YMCA Leicester, this will allow us to work with more young people with multiple complex needs from across the Borough.