Our Employability Programme, Wybourn Works, is one of ten place-based ‘JobsPlus’ pilots in the country. The model taken from the United States works on community-led programmes that respond to the wide range of needs expressed by residents in order to holistically break down generational cycles of unemployment.
As is the approach of our Wybourn Works Team, this holistic approach focuses not only on support with employment skills and CV-writing, but on the wellbeing of the community. A big part of that is nurturing children and young people, with Wybourn residents expressing how there is often little for them to do. As part of their outreach, the team partnered with one organisation whose mission it is to keep young people off the streets – and particularly out of gangs: Always an Alternative.
Run by the eclectic Anthony Oleisande, Always an Alternative is a growing and award-winning group working with children and young people across Sheffield. Through our funding from Wybourn Works, their signature mobile youth club (known locally as the ‘Youth Bus’) is commissioned to set up in the grounds of Wybourn Community Primary School (across the road from the Pat Midgley Community Hub) every Monday between 4pm and 6pm. There, they work in collaboration with our Wybourn Works Team – particularly Mandy Green, to provide after-school activities for children and teenagers up to the age of 16.
As Anthony explains, the sessions provide the space for young people to come out of their shells and learn to interact in a non-school environment, with ground rules clearly laid out. For lots of young people who attend and have grown in confidence as a result, it’s one of the highlights of their week, and some of the older teenagers have become role models for the younger children – even helping to run the sessions each week.
Our team have kept track of the genuine value this has had on the lives of many children in Wybourn. One child, “Sam”, first started attending with “noticeable shyness and limited social interaction”, always “on the boundary of group activities”. As the weeks went on, Sam gradually grew more confident engaging with his peers and demonstrated “remarkable progress in confidence and interpersonal skills”.
One of our teenage participants, “Molly”, had just finished her GCSEs and was a young carer. When Mandy Green suggested she come to the Youth Bus, again, Molly remained shy at first. She eventually came out of her shell and her continued volunteering at the Youth Bus is providing her with good grounding to start building experience in her chosen career path, childcare.
The ‘Youth Bus’ has grown so much in popularity in Wybourn that when funding was potentially going to come to an end last year, dozens of letters were sent by Wybourn children and parents alike expressing their desire for it to stay put – and so it did! Now, with the continued promotion of the club in the community by our Wybourn Works Team, numbers have recently reached up to 100, which is a record even for Always an Alternative!
This has become a real mainstay of Wybourn Works over the past year, but also the community of Wybourn in general. Provisions for young people like Always an Alternative are important not just because of the part they play in keeping young people out of gangs, but in the way that they positively bring young people together in an environment of respect, helping them to grow in confidence and continue to thrive as they enter adulthood.
