YMCA Humber’s youth club launched in June 2022, and since then we have had over 250 kids sign up. The club runs every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 4pm – 6pm, with us seeing around 40 kids per session.
All kids who come to our youth club live locally, and we have been able to provide a safe space for them to come to after school.
Our youth club provides something for everyone to enjoy, we run a range of sports and wellbeing activities for free, many of the kids have been coming since day one and we have seen the friendships develop and their confidence grow in the last year.
As part of the JEFF Project, we run wellbeing specific sessions one day per week.
One of our Wellbeing Officers has been attending youth club every Wednesday, carrying out different activities to normalise the discussions around mental health and wellbeing.
Some of the kids expressed they struggled with feeling angry and they did not know how to manage without hitting or saying things they did not mean. As a result of these struggles the wellbeing team focused sessions on anger management.
Our wellbeing team want these sessions to be youth led and through discussions they an identify which areas they need to target to help them.
Quotes from young people:
“I am shy around new people, but you (wellbeing team) help me with being more confident.”
“I wish I could click my fingers and you’d come and help me with my worry.”
These quotes show how important these wellbeing sessions are to the kids, and this is an area which we want to continue.
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Website link: Free Youth Club (ymca-humber.com)