Newcastle upon Tyne YMCA
Key Facts
Location
Project Criteria
Project funding
£83,891
Funding round
Newcastle Upon Tyne YMCA is a youth work agency providing services to local young people aged 13-25. These services include Community based outreach youth work initiatives, a volunteer mentoring project called 'Steps Forward' and a student support project based in Newcastle College of Further Education. The YMCA is a charity founded in 1848.
Our 'Steps Forward' mentoring project has been operating since 1999. It now supports three main client groups: young asylum seekers and refugees, young offenders and isolated young people in the community. We recruit local people to become volunteer mentors and provide them with accredited training. The young people are matched to the volunteers and receive mentoring based on their own expressed needs and interests.
Using the Parenting Fund we can now increase the amount of work we are doing with young parents with a particular focus on fathers. We want to help young parents improve their life skills and develop an understanding of parenting and its responsibilities. If appropriate, the scheme can help young fathers increase their contact with their children.
A full time key worker is being appointed. He/She will have a caseload of 27 mentors and young parents and collaborate with other local agencies working with young single parents. We hope this will lead to a better take up by young parents of other services available to them.