Wycombe Youth Action (WYA) provides unique services and projects to reduce social exclusion of young people, building their hopes and aspirations, confidence and skills.
They support girls and young women attending a weekly youth club through a variety of educational, voluntary, social and inter-personal activities, helping them to develop and achieve their goals.
Supporting WYA to set up a satellite club in the youth club meant that they could widen their offer to include physical activity and the satellite club could widen provision into a deprived ward with a high proportion of 14 to 19 year olds.
Girls who attend the youth group are from a variety of cultures and background and some also report having a disability. Ahead of the programme we surveyed the young people using a mental health and well being questionnaire and found many of them reported low levels of mental health.
The project workers who run the youth group added anecdotal evidence to this and said the girls are often very shy and can take some time before they trust people. Coming to the youth group is an opportunity for them to relax and be themselves as they are not intimidated by their peers - something that happens in their school settings.
As it was such a diverse group of girls we had to ensure that we provided them with the right activity and deliverer that was going to support their needs and also ensure that it achieved the aims of the organisation.
This meant taking the time to speak with all parties involved to ensure we created the right offer for them.
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