We love being invited to visit the projects that we support and were excited to visit TYPO – Tiptree Youth Project Outreach at their Wednesday youth club.
The Wednesday youth club was set up following feedback from young people in Tiptree that they wanted a safe space to hang out, with trusted adults to support them. The club offers a place where young people of secondary school age can feel safe, have fun, get active, explore ideas and make friends.
The VVU have provided funding for an extra youth worker at the club, as well as financial support towards the costs of using the community centre.
At the youth club, which runs 4.30 to 6.30 every Wednesday during term time, we met Andy the club’s youth worker and Pat, one of TYPO’s trustees. Andy gave us a great oversight of the club and his hopes for the future. Eventually the club hope to have their own space that they share with other community organisations, a space they can decorate, store things and put their own stamp on.
Currently the club capacity is for 30 young people and most weeks between 12 and 20 are in attendance. While the VVU visited young people were playing board games, making Christmas crafts and chatting and interacting with each other and the youth workers there.
Essex Youth Service supports the group with extra staff so that there are enough adults to provide hot drinks and food from the kitchen as well as supporting the activities taking place. The group also has access to another room at the community centre so if young people want to be able to chat to a youth worker in private there is the space to do this confidentially.
Secondary School Support
Andy goes into Tiptree’s Secondary School – Thurstable – every Wednesday lunch time to do playground pastoral work in the guise of a lunchtime walkabout. This builds trust and good relationships with the students at the school, who then want to attend Wednesday’s youth club as they have built a rapport with Andy through the lunchtime sessions.
Chatting to Andy he talked about being able to support the students both at school and at the youth club, and how pleased he was to see some new faces at the youth club due to his lunchtime chats with the new Year 7 pupils.
Andy went on to say how the Y7s have told him how much they are enjoying the youth club, they say it keeps them safe from being bullied. Andy also explained that with little to do on an evening, without the youth club he knew some of the young people would be wandering the streets, potentially engaging in risky behaviour as there is no other safe space to go.
Before leaving I walked round the youth club taking some photos and chatting to the young people. They were all positive about the youth club, the activities it offered, how it was warm, accessible and how they really liked Andy and appreciated all he does for them and the community.
