Celebrating Youth Involvement in Wythenshawe
Despite the challenges of 2020-21, Wythenshawe Community Housing Group’s (WCHG) Youth Involvement Team in partnership with members of the Wythenshawe Youth and Play Alliance have continued to provide meaningful and safe activities for children and young people.
During the pandemic they have delivered: protective youth work, detached youth work, paper bag play schemes and activity door drops, a face to face summer play scheme, online LGBTQ+ programmes, in person and online Youth Forum sessions, including social action projects, the co-ordination of HAF Easter packs, football programmes and face to face targeted sessions to support young people’s well-being, ensuring Youth voice and participation remain at the heart of all the work across the partnership.
Youth / Play Alliance partners include: Wythenshawe Forum Trust, Wythenshawe Community Initiative, N-Gage, City in the Community, The Proud Trust and the Benchill Afterschool Club as well as wider partners through the Wythenshawe Youth and Play Alliance.
Some highlights of this work include;
- Nearly 2000 engagements with young people across the year.
- The delivery of 3480 holiday activity packs to children from 21 primary schools.
- 1142 street-based engagements with Wythenshawe young people.
- Young people talking to Marcus Rashford online about things that matter to them.
- A ‘Hate Crime Awareness’ project where the Youth Forum created their own track.
- A social action project where children wrote Christmas cards to elderly residents.
- Young People helping redesign the team’s delivery structure, keeping Skills for Life at the forefront of all our youth and play programmes.
- Our sports programmes kept young people active and encouraged healthy lifestyles.
- A targeted street based programme for 21/22 with a focus on those involved in ASB.
- Supporting families with activities that focused on emotional well-being and resilience.
- The delivery of a Covid-safe Summer 2020 Youth & Play programme.
WCHG Youth Involvement Manager Christine Bogard said, “I would like to personally thank every member of the Youth & Play Alliance who have supported each other throughout the past year and who continue to provide essential services for children and young people across Wythenshawe. The Alliance is proud of the work they have delivered so far and will continue to look for opportunities and solutions that help to address the impact that the pandemic continues to have on the lives of the children, young people and their families in Wythenshawe.”
