Year 1 Exec Report: SOUTHALL DETACHED YOUTH PROJECT 2022-2023
Introduction
APNA YOUTH is a volunteer led grass roots charity from the West London suburb of Southall which was awarded a £72,355 for three years from the National Lottery Community Grants programme
which started in July 2022. The project seeks to deliver a bespoke, targeted street-based youth project employing two Detached Youth workers who will use intense key working methods with an identified cohort of young people aged 11-20 years from the Southall area.
The two youth workers will engage an identified group of young people in the community. Once they’ve built up trust and confidence with them, they’ll then carry out a needs assessment, provide support and guidance. With the overall goal/objective to divert the young person(s) from the negativity (drug & alcoholism, economic deprivation, criminal exploitation, and health inequalities) within their immediate surroundings. We’ll support and where appropriate refer them to other agencies and projects in and around the Southall area.
Year 1 Key outcomes and highlights
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Recruitment of 2.5 part time youth workers for the project.
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Engagement of a youth group from Havelock Estate who have all now congregate in the new Berkley housing development.
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25 registered youths and core engagement with at least 18 of them. With a particular focus to earn their trust so they’re willing to share their personal details with us.
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Supported two young adults with part-time employment with youth work intervention.
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Developed new links with employers in the London boroughs of Ealing and Hounslow. Referred five young adults to ACT (Let’s go Southall) to become more physically active and participate in health and wellbeing initiatives designed for the community. An additional incentive and benefit for the young person would be to encourage them to become volunteers so they in turn could run similar activities such as basketball, Park Run, cycling, outdoor gym, yoga etc.
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Raised Profile of Apna Youth within the Southall community.
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Developed partnership working with services and organisations based in Southall such as Catalyst Housing, Berkley, ACT (Lets go Southall), Osterley Sports and Well Being Centre and the Young Ealing Foundation.
Overview of year 1
Year one has been a challenging year for APNA YOUTH, but we’ve made some positive strides with both the project and in the community. Following a bereavement to a family member of one of our trustees, who was also a key volunteer of our organisation for over 10 years, the start of our project was subsequently delayed by a month.
Recruitment of staff has been one of our major hurdles. In our initial recruitment campaign, we were only able to recruit one of the two youth workers required. This meant that we missed out on late summer engagement of youth in the Southall area. As a contingency one of our trustees stepped in to fill the gap in staffing by inducting Lydia Lawrence as our senior youth worker over August and September 2022.
The induction consisted of introducing Lydia to partners in the community and mapping the geographical area of Southall for her by orientating her into the two parts of the borough covering UB1 and UB2. She was taken on a walk around of three big estates of Havelock, Golf Links and Windmill estate as well as being shown Southall Park, Spikes Bridge and Recreation Parks. These identified hotspots were shown to her as well as the new Berkley home development in Central Southall. This was an eye-opening exercise for both Lydia and our trustee who had been a resident of Southall his entire life as they were able to see the density in Southall and the radical changes that have taken place in Southall in recent years which has brought a high volume of people into the area.
Despite our staffing issues Autumn proved to be a key time for APNA YOUTH, alongside Lydia, the trustees supported the community in saving the Young Adult Centre (YAC) the local youth club and it was through our interactions that we were able to recruit our second youth worker. Alongside Southall Community Alliance, Young Ealing Foundation and residents in the community we supported the campaign to save the YAC by marketing the petition in the
community to save the centre as well as giving significant input into letters to the council leadership which resulted in the council having to reverse its decision to close the Youth centre in October and us having a walk around with John Martin, a ward councillor for
Norwood Green.
Aman Jaswal coaching the youth group during the friendly football match vs Southall Athletic.
A positive outcome of our involvement in this local campaign was a greater exposure to potential partners and residents and the recruitment of a second youth worker to work alongside Lydia. At the time we were positive of having him in post as he was a young individual from the community who was passionate about making change. Unfortunately, his recruitment did not work out for all parties due to the physical nature of his work and for health and safety reasons we were unable to keep him in post from December 2022. Subsequently we had to modify the work we were able to do with one youth worker which largely entailed Lydia building up links with partners in the community with Catlyst Housing, Active Communities Team, Treasure Boxing club as well as taking advantage of some training opportunities through the Young Ealing Foundation.
January and December proved a difficult time for us in that we did not have a full quota of staff which was combined with cold weather at the end of when evening temperatures hit - 8C. Working closely with Lydia we looked at what was needed on a practical day to day to
engage young people on a street level such as projects to signpost young people into, IT systems and critically the recruitment of a new youth worker to work alongside her. By the end of February, we were successful in recruiting Simon Tomlinson as our second youth worker and in March we were able to recruit a backup sessional youth worker in Hassan Mohammed to cover staff absences and activities. It is from here that we have started to carry out two sessions of street-based youth work and have recently engaged a cohort of young people around the new Berkley development.
Lydia and Simon - Detached youth workers
Without going into the theory of detached youth work, it has taken time for our youth work staff to gain the trust and confidence of the group before the identified cohort of young people consented to register their name and contact details with our project. Slowly relationships and trust has developed with the young people and our youth work staff who now have direct communication with both them and some of their parents. Working alongside them we’ve organised a friendly football match with a local youth team and have refereed six of the group to ACT (Let’s Go Southall) Basketball project. Within our initial core group, we have also been able to get two of the young people to volunteer at our annual Primary school’s community football tournament. The two individuals were able to see our wider goals of trying to build a youth service and both are considering undertaking football coaching.
Currently, we have registered 25 young people aged 15-18 years whom we are engaging with a core of 18 youths. Representing our first group from our detached youth group, they have an affiliation with the group who have given our youth workers valuable input in how we can engage better by using digital technology through social media, WhatsApp, and the use of a website. Over the coming weeks we will be devising our 12-week programme with the young people designed to educate and inform the group around aspects of the law, anti-social behaviour, drugs, sexual health, life choice, knife crime, youth empowerment and future pathways into education training and employment. We are finalising the logistics of the venue with Berkley Housing with view to start our programme in October 2023 taking us up to December 2023, which will be followed by an end of project celebration and activity for the young people to coincide with the Christmas holidays.
Young group at the Go-Karting activity
Spend Analysis
In terms of spend, Year one of the grant was paid in two instalments of £12,200 in June 2022 and December 2022. As of August 2023, a total of £16,136 has been spent in Yr1 which has meant that the project has underspent by £8,264 in Yr1. We assigned a small portion of the grant towards our annual showcase primary school’s event in June 2023, which was attended by 16 primary schools and 220 children. The event had two volunteers from our youth cohort attend on the day, and it was valuable in raising our profile with both ward councillors and the Berkley Group who are the contractors who have developed the old gas works site in Central Southall, whom we are working with to deliver our groupwork sessions in October.
The underspend is predominantly due to the challenges we have encountered with recruitment, which was resolved by April 2023. Not having a settled staff team subsequently meant we were not able to engage a youth group over the Easter holiday period through trips/activities or deliver our groupwork programme, which would have entailed renting a space and bringing in external workshop facilitators. This has subsequently brought about the bulk of our underspend in Yr1. We’ve also committed to undertaking two mobile phone contracts for the staff team and maintaining a monthly web domain for a website for APNA YOUTH which will be live by 31[st] October 2023.
You’ll see from the tables below that we have an underspend of £8,264, which was largely attributed to our staffing problems in Year 1. Now with a settled staff team our youth work team has already made significant strides with an engaged youth group which can be built upon through our 12-week workshop program. We have already planned how the underspend can be outlaid between Autumn/Winter 2023 which will entail paying out for venue hire, external facilitator fees, celebration event and two activities during the 12-week cycle (October Half Term and Christmas). Alongside this we can explore the possibility of carrying out a bespoke girl’s group with the small group of girls we have engaged or carry out detached street-based youth work in another locality to target a new cohort of young people for the spring/summer 2024.
Table 1 - Year 1 Exenditure
| Table 1 - Year 1 Exenditure | |
|---|---|
| Yr1 Expenditure | Yr 1 |
| Budget | £24,400 |
| Spend | £16,136 |
| Remaining Balance | £8,264 |
Table 2 - Year Expenditure Breakdown
| Table 2 - Year Expenditure Breakdown | |
|---|---|
| Yr 1 Expenditure breakdown | |
| Staffing | £6,036 |
| Equipment | £1,513 |
| Uniforms | £1,500 |
| Communications Mobile phone – contracts x 2 Website – Domain name & Web hosting |
£636 |
| Professional Fees (Website consultation and Analysts) |
£630 |
| Training Safeguarding Countylines |
£425 |
| Sundries Food & Refreshments for young people, planning sessions for staff ID badges Travel expenses |
£525 |
| Management Fees | £2,200 |
| Football Activity | £140 |
| Go Karting | £1,020 |
| Schools Tournament | £1,200 |
| Transport (minibus) | £311 |
| Total Expenditure to date | £16,136 |
| Underspend Yr 1 | £8,264 |
Table 3 -Year 1 Underspend
| Table 3 -Year 1 Underspend | |
|---|---|
| Remaining Balance: £8,264 | |
| Year 1 Committed Spend: | |
| Hiring of facilities (12-week program x 2) | £3,000 |
| Music & Studio Workshop (Brent) | £1,500 |
| Positive Activities/Enrichment | £2,500 |
| External facilitators (CV/Finance/Career Pathways) | £1,200 |
Year 2 Plan
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Now with a group engaged we can deliver our 12-week program from the community space in the Berkley development which we are currently in discussions about renting over a 12-week period from October.
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Consolidate work with the core of 18 youths
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Continue to build trust and engagement with the 7 girls engaged in the group
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With the training and onboarding completed, outreach to other areas (UB2 and Golflinks Estate / Lancaster Road). Carry out an additional street-based session in the community based on intel from our partners such as the Police, Local Authority, Catylst Housing and the newly formed Southall Neighbourhood forum.
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Deliver an activity/trip in the October half term as well as a Christmas activity and celebration event to mark the end of the groupwork sessions in December.
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Investigate feasibility of an “only female” group
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On going collaboration with other charities such as Mind, ACT, Young Adult’s Centre, Jamal Edwards and London Tigers.
APNA YOUTH 2022
£
Income 2022
| Lotery Grant ACT/Tournament/Crowsdfund Young Ealing Foundaton Ealing Borough Total Expenditure 2022 Salaries/Sesional Events/Actvites Equipment&Uniforms AGM Volunteers Awards Insurance Communicatons & Marketng Training Transport Sundries(Food&drink, admin) Professional fees (Designer) Venue Hire Total Net Cash In Bank |
£24,400 £5,180 £5,000 £5,000 |
|---|---|
| £39,580 | |
| £3,000 £13,600 £3,000 £400 £400 £400 £825 £425 £550 £550 £850 £1,300 |
|
| £25,300 | |
| £14,280 |
Annual Financial Report for 2022
Date: 1[st] Oct, 2023
Income
| Income | |
|---|---|
| Source | Amount (£) |
| Lotery Grant | £24,400 |
| ACT/Tournament/Crowdfunding | £5,180 |
| Young Ealing Foundaton | £5,000 |
| Ealing Borough | £5,000 |
| Total Income | £39,580 |
Expenditure
| Expenditure | |
|---|---|
| Expense | Amount (£) |
| Salaries/Seasonal | £3,000 |
| Events/Actvites | £13,600 |
| Equipment & Uniforms | £3,000 |
| AGM | £400 |
| Volunteers Awards | £400 |
| Insurance | £400 |
| Communicatons & Marketng | £825 |
| Training | £425 |
| Transport | £550 |
| Sundries (Food & Drink, Admin) | £550 |
| Professional Fees (Designer) | £850 |
| Venue Hire | £1,300 |
| Total Expenditure | £25,300 |
Net Cash in Bank
| Descripton | Amount (£) |
|---|---|
| Net Cash in Bank | £14,280 |
Summary Statement
In the fiscal year 2022, our organization received a total income of £39,580, primarily from sources such as the Lottery Grant (£24,400), ACT/Tournament/Crowdfunding (£5,180), Young Ealing Foundation (£5,000), and Ealing Borough (£5,000). This income enabled us to fund our activities and further our mission.
During the same period, our organization incurred a total expenditure of £25,300, which covered various expenses, including salaries/seasonal costs, event and activity expenses, equipment and uniforms, AGM costs, volunteer awards, insurance, communications and marketing, training, transport, sundries (food and drink, admin), professional fees (designer), and venue hire.
After accounting for all expenses, our organization ended the fiscal year with a net cash balance of £14,280.
We would like to express our gratitude to all our donors and supporters for their contributions that enable us to continue our work in the community. We remain committed to our mission and look forward to another year of positive impact.
Financial statement prepared by Apan Youth Treasurer: Aman Jaswal
Statement prepared by Chair of Apna Youth: Vinod Mahi
Financials reviewed and approved by:
Sundeep Jaga. ACMA (1-NCRB)
Associate Chartered Management Accountant