Hi Sidmouth community, it’s Emily here again; Youth Work and Wellbeing enthusiast!
I am pleased to say that the Sidmouth Youth Centre team finished off this year building new friendships, a key priority for Young Devon.
Using the Sidmouth Youth Centre building differently, due to Covid-19, has meant some new young people have joined us. It’s always great to be able to welcome in and get to know new faces, even after being based in the community for such a long time; in the past month we have played many dynamic games of pool and had many interesting conversations.
The new skate park build has created a fantastic opportunity for us to outreach and engage with local young people who we have never spoken to before. Talking to them about how much they love this community space has made us even more excited about the total renovation next year; it looks truly amazing, and I know the young people and staff are eager to use this new state of the art facility.
An important part of our strategy in Sidmouth is building community relationships; relation-ships with young people, other members of the community and multi-agency professionals that support, serve and protect them…
We were thrilled to welcome the newly appointed PC Rob Clatworthy, Sidmouth Neighbour-hood Beat Manager, into the Youth Club at the end of term, to meet with the team and young people. Games of pool were offered and introductions made (plus some friendly banter of course!) The young people were keen to get to know the Officer, and were particularly interested to hear that he grew up in Sidmouth and used to attend the Youth Club when he was younger.
As professionals, the team had some interesting conversations with PC Rob Clatworthy; we discussed balancing enforcement, keeping young people safe, keeping the community protected and the normal risk-taking that adolescents explore as part of their development into adulthood. We made a real ally for the future that evening.
Wishing you all a Happy New Year, till next time!
Psst… if you missed it, please do check out Young Devon’s Christmas Campaign at www.youngdevon.org/everyone-can-be-a-hero
Sidmouth Town Council commissions and funds Young Devon to open and run the Manstone Youth Centre
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