Amplify
Amplify
A partnership with Musinc, to create a ‘free space’ for young people aged 10 - 16 in Middlesbrough with a key focus around music.
Amplify aims to build and develop youth voice within the Musinc project, break down barriers for young people in accessing Middlesbrough Town Hall and its facilities, create a neutral space free of expectations for young people to share interests, thoughts and ideas on music and culture and encourage engagement with other young people from a range of backgrounds.
Feast of Fun
Feast of Fun
Feast of Fun is a partnership of local churches, community groups and schools that offer holiday activities with healthy food across Middlesbrough and Redcar & Cleveland. The funding has been received during the summer, Easter and October half term holidays for the past three years, which enables us to provide our youth support service and providing food for young people over the half term.
Great North Childrens Hospital
Great North Children's Hospital
A partnership between Youth Focus North East and the Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (NUTH), has resulted in new roles for two youth workers to work with young people and young adults (age 16-25) with diabetes, within the Great North Children's Hospital. This is part of an exciting project funded by NHS England to transform the long-term health and social outcomes of young people with Diabetes, helping to promote the social development of young patients aged 16-25 years via a range of activities, combining education with enjoyment, challenge resilience and learning.
Alongside this project, a further Youth Worker will support young patients across the hospital with the aim of improving the advocacy for groups of patients currently under represented, assisting in the transition to adult and tertiary care, accompanying young people to hospital appointments and undertaking support work on the wards.
Holiday Activity Fund
Holiday Activity Fund
Holiday Activity Fund (HAF) pays for youth provision sessions which run during the school holidays offering free, fun activities and food to children and young people aged 5 to 16 years. HAF understand that the school holidays can be a challenging time for parents. Middlesbrough Council on behalf of the Holiday Activity Fund have granted us funding over Easter, summer and Christmas to support young people to engage in positive activities, physical activity and providing a hot nutritious meal over a time which to some can be very difficult.
North Ormesby Big Local
North Ormesby
Our North Ormesby youth provision provides a weekly safe and fun space for young people aged 10 - 18, to develop friendships and life skills. Our provision supports young people from getting involved in risk taking behaviours and giving them opportunities to raise their aspirations and hope for their futures. Having this space space is important to the young people, and they are doing a lot of positive work within their community and area.
Our sessions include a range of activities chosen weekly by the young people; cooking being a notably large part of their learning in North Ormesby, as well as learning about each other's cultures through food, music, and art.
Pallister Park - Postitive Pathways
Pallister Park
Positive Pathways
Funded by Children in Need, Positive Pathways delivers youth activities for young people living in East Middlesbrough. This project provides new and fun experiences through open access and 1-1s to explore opportunities, raise aspirations, be positively challenged and be supported to be the decision makers of their own pathway.
This is a community project based in the Pallister Park Centre with and for young people of East Middlesbrough. Youth Focus North East offers a safe and fun space for young people aged 10 to 18 to develop friends and skills in an informal educational manner.
Park End - Pop N Drop
Park End
Pop N Drop
Based in the Park End area of Middlesbrough, is delivered from the skate park located at the heart of the ward. Funded by Rooted In Nature, Sport England and Tees Valley Sports, this provision has been running for the past two years and has been described by young people as ‘like a family’; young people tell us ‘we love coming, it’s so much fun!’
The opportunities we provide within the sessions include topics such as: the importance of a healthy lifestyle, cooking workshops, positive emotional wellbeing, and isolation and loneliness. Our young people also have the chance to take part in social action projects to give back to the wider community.
Rowlands Gill
Rowlands Gill
Based in the Rowlands Gill area of Gateshead, we run a youth space in partnership with Our Lives Gateshead CIC and are partly funded by European Metal Recycling (EMR). The youth space is run in the Carers Trust Building every Tuesday evening.
Our youth space aims to provide a safe space for young people aged 10-18 where they have the opportunity to develop new friendships and learn new life skills through our wide range of activities. At Rowlands Gill our weekly sessions are themed where we aim to informally educate the young people based on that theme. A short example of themes we have had are Cultural awareness week, Wildlife week, Science week, Disability awareness week, and so many more.
Tommy's Pop Up Park Space
Tommy's Pop Up Park Space
Based in the Thorntree Ward of Middlesbrough and is delivered in Partnership with St Thomas Church based in Brambles Farm and Thorntree. This project is funded by the You’ve Got This Partnership, Middlesbrough Council and Tees Valley Community Foundation.
Our youth work provision provides a safe space for young people aged 10 to 18 to develop friendships and life skills in an informal educational manner. Our sessions are themed around the personal challenges young people face, including deprivation, mental health, employability, risk-taking behaviour, and improving their physical activity.
Some of our key findings from speaking with young people about their experiences is that they are dealing with issues such as feelings of loneliness, having missed opportunities to learn informally, and feeling as if they have no voice or opportunity to be heard. This feedback has shaped the life lessons programme to ensure that all young people’s needs can be met in a safe, fun and engaging way.
Case Studies
project 5
Following the successful completion of the distribution of Christmas hampers to nominated people in the TS3 area, it was agreed we would join the Youth Focus North East youth club in Thorntree to deliver our next social action project.
research and social action portfolio
Funded by the Youth Endowment Fund, the #iwill Fund and the Co-op group, PAC is a pioneering network of peer researchers and changemakers across 10 regions in England and Wales. The North East cohort is composed of 11 peer researchers, 12 separate charity organisations and over 150 change makers. From September 2021 to March 2023, those young researchers have conducted ground-breaking research to find out about young people’s experiences of violence and their views on how they can help make their communities better places to live, work and grow as well as impactful social action projects based on their results.
YOUTH LEADERSHIP GROUPS
Young Boro Champions
Young Boro Champions is a group of young people from East Middlesbrough who are exploring the challenges faced by their community, in order to find their own solutions and make lasting change.
Through this project we enable young people to explore ideas and the challenges facing their community, raise their aspirations, be supported to be the decision makers, manage a larger budget, take the next step in their social action journey and encourage more young people to be involved.
To find out more, contact: tilly@youthfocusne.org.uk
Peer Action Collective
The Youth Endowment Fund Peer Action Collective (PAC) is a peer research programme running nationwide with 9 regions in England and one in Wales. Youth Focus North East are proud to be the lead delivery partner for the North East region. As the lead partner we invited other organisations from across the North East to help us deliver this project, enabling us to run the project in urban, rural and coastal areas. Partner organisations each host one Peer Researcher, aged between 16-20. The aim is for these Peer Researchers to investigate youth violence in their communities; with the intention that this will then be used to produce social action projects.
This project has produced a range of high quality research and, more importantly, high quality social action based on the reliable research outcomes. Young people involved have learnt valuable skills which they can take into their working life.
To find out more, contact: rebecca@youthfocusne.org.uk
Young Inspectors
The Young Inspectors is a programme set up for young people across Middlesbrough and Redcar to ensure young people’s voices are heard within services and programmes. The Young Inspectors are made of young people from different backgrounds and abilities who conduct inspections of local services. They produce reports with recommendations for the service, covering what works well, what does not work well and what can be done to make things better.
The programme allows the young person’s voice to be heard on the services that are being developed and offered, in order to ensure that the programme is not only meeting the requirements set out by the DfE but is developing in the right direction for those children, young people and their families that access the provision. The Young Inspectors programme allows the young people who train in this role to develop skills and experience opportunities that can be carried forward into their future. Training for the Young Inspectors is in the form of interactive activity workshops and planning meetings around upcoming inspections.
To find out more, contact: emma@youthfocusne.org.uk
UK Youth Parliament
The UK Youth Parliament was established in 1999 to provide opportunities for young people, including those from marginalised communities, to influence the parliamentary process.
The UK Youth Parliament is made up of more than 300 young people aged between 11 and 18 years, elected as Members of Youth Parliament (MYPs) to represent the views of their peers. It provides opportunities for young people to bring about social change through meaningful representation and campaigning.
Key activities for the UK Youth Parliament include participating in regional roundtable events and undertaking a national ballot of UK-wide youth views, Make Your Mark.
The MYPs also campaign locally, regionally and nationally throughout the year and deliver sessions with schools and in the community to engage young people with the democratic process.
