National Lottery funding for digital youth work services

We are proud that we’ve been successful in securing funding from The National Lottery’s Coronavirus Community Support Fund, which will enable us to continue our online support for young people across the county.

Since we closed the doors of our youth centres in March 2020 we have developed online alternatives, which can now be extended and developed during our transition to reopening - giving rurally isolated young people (and those who are not yet confident to engage in physical support sessions) an online space that provides them with someone to talk to, somewhere to go and something to do.

Ben said: “I can’t tell you how grateful I am to have our online session, I haven’t stopped talking about it since last week.  I absolutely loved it!!  This has been the only chance I’ve had to connect with my friends since the lockdown started, it's so important for me”.  (The young person’s name has been changed for confidentiality purposes).

Our online space provides informal opportunities for young people to ‘check-in’ with trained youth workers, to have that all important offload or to find the support they need. We create a wide range of regular activities, from fun engagement such as viewing parties, podcasts, gaming, creative and music tuition and live streams, to more focussed skill-based workshops and discussions for our older members. We have workshops tailored towards transition into adulthood and tailored sessions for LGBTQ+ young people and those with SEND.

Dan Barton, Space Partnerships and Projects Lead says, “We have skilled youth workers who excel at providing online services. This funding empowers us to work with the young people of Devon to unleash their creativity. We are also excited to begin working, as lead for The Youth Work in Devon Partnership, with our colleagues in the sector to widen our net and increase our reach across the county and explore the virtual youth work world and its possibilities.”