Young Doves Youth Club
Annual Report 2018
Young Doves Youth Club started our New Year 8[th] January 2018. We continue to operate ten hours per week over four nights, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and are primarily funded by the Education Authority.
We employ one Support Youth Worker in Charge and three Youth Support Workers. This year we also had four voluntary leaders who were keen to experience working with children and young people as they have future plans to pursue careers in either teaching or social work. There were also a further three leaders joined us to man the summer scheme.
There were approximately eighty-five members registered with us this year ranging in ages from four to eighteen. The Youth Club members are involved along with the leaders in planning what activities take place throughout the year. These consist of Arts and Crafts, Games, Basic Cookery and Sports. We also had social events i.e. Easter, Halloween and Christmas parties when we hired a children’s party bus with an inbuilt play area and we also had an indoor inflatable assault course. This enables the young people to have fun while at the same time exercising.
This year in an effort to encourage our members to lead a healthy lifestyle we hired a fitness instructor for one class per week for eight weeks. The instructor taught them the best way to exercise and educated them about the benefits of eating healthily. We received very positive feedback from the members, staff and parents, so we intend to include this again in our annual programme of events.
Our next very popular event in the year is the Summer Scheme. This year it ran from July 16[th] to August 3[rd] and was a great success. There was a varied timetable of events including swimming, roller skating, water sports, circuits class, arts and crafts, basic cookery and sports. This required hiring a fitness instructor, a clay modelling company and a roller skating group. We also had to pay for coaches to take the children to various venues. The Summer Scheme was funded by charging each member a registration fee and also funding from the Education Authority.
The young people were encouraged and assisted by the leaders to take part in the activities even though some were hesitant to begin with as they had not previously had the opportunity in experiencing such things as roller skating or water sports.
The response from all involved was positive with many parents praising the Youth Club for providing a safe environment for their children to meet other children in the community and encounter new experiences they wouldn’t otherwise have had access to. This was very encouraging for both staff and leaders to hear.
The Youth Club closed for the last three weeks in August to enable everyone to recharge and be ready to start again in September when the staff and Youth Club Committee will continue to provide a valuable service to our local community.
Clare McCann
Chairperson