Warrington Youth Club Limited | Digital Platform for young people from Cheshire

The Digital Platform will provide a virtual space where children and young people will be able to access high quality social opportunities, develop their interests, build friendship groups with people their own age, and support their re-engagement with education. 

Children and young people who are feeling isolated and struggling with their mental health will be able to access qualified Youth Workers and Counsellors in a discreet manner. This will provide young people suffering with severe emotional wellbeing issues with an avenue to process and discuss their concerns and prevent their situation worsening as they wait to access a medical intervention.

This project develops on our emergency Covid response by using the learning of people’s behaviour during the pandemic. The key issue throughout Covid was to maintain services for young people, with many groups identifying the need to adapt to online delivery. With the national uncertainty about further local and regional lockdowns (currently Warrington has the sixth highest Covid-19 cases nationally), it is likely that services for children and young people will be disrupted for the foreseeable future and young people will face further restrictions on how they can socialise in person. 

We aim for the project to impact organisations by enabling charities across Cheshire to collaborate in ways they never have before – using a digital platform to break down barriers and bring their services into local people’s homes

This programme is part of the Catalyst and The National Lottery Community Fund COVID-19 Digital Response funding initiative; a partnership between The National Lottery Community Fund and CAST, supported by the Catalyst network.

As a network of children and young people’s charities, Warrington Youth Club have identified significant barriers for children and young people as they attempt to access services in the Covid world.

Some organisations have not been able to reopen because of funding issues, or have severely limited their work, preventing young people from accessing their support network.

Appointments are problematic as travel has become increasingly challenging through the pandemic. Transport links have been reduced and people are less confident in using public transport.

This lack of access has dramatically escalated Mental Health issues in children and young people.

As a young person from Cheshire I will be able to develop a user account and access the Digital Platform for children and young people. I will be able to take part in online discussions, quizzes, interactive talking, and debates. There will be a chance to meet other children and young people my own age and feel less lonely.

I will be able to learn new activities and keep involved with things I used to do before the pandemic, such as learning to play instruments, DJing, or learning to cook. I will be able to meet Youth Workers from the organisations I am part of and speak to them about how I am feeling. I will be able to learn about what is happening across Cheshire and watch videos from other Youth Clubs and young people’s organisations. 

Most importantly I will be able to visit the platform whenever I want, over the weekend and in the evenings.

 

As a Youth Worker I am going to receive training on how to use the platform and I will be able to run online sessions for young people from my organisation and across Cheshire on a whole range of activities. I will be able to join a team of Youth Workers from organisations across Cheshire who contribute to a programme of activities that are live streamed for children and young people each week. 

 

Key User Groups (all from across Cheshire):

Children aged 7 – 12

Young People aged 13 – 19

Young Adults aged 19 – 25

Children and young people with disabilities

LGBT+ young people

BAME children and young people.