Youth groups across Rochdale borough benefit from govt investment fund

Five local groups have been awarded funding from the government to expand their services.

A total of £144,779 is being awarded locally to 9th Heywood (St Michael’s) Scout Group; Back O’Th Moss Community Centre; WHAG; Rochdale Connections Trust and Deeplish Community Centre Association.

The funding is part of a £12 million pot to create, improve and expand local youth facilities and services across the country, to support young people’s health, wellbeing and skills for work and life.

Nationally, funding has been fast-tracked to local youth services where supply is currently far short of meeting demand. This will help to increase access to services, trusted youth workers and dedicated facilities for young people.

Applications for funding were assessed by BBC Children in Need as an Intermediary Grant Maker.

The application process for the remaining £368 million tranche of the Youth Investment Fund is expected to begin in summer 2022. Youth services across 45 local authorities and over 600 district wards in the most deprived parts of England will be eligible to apply.

9th Heywood Scouts

Richard Baron, chairman of the scout group, said: "The funding has been mainly used for the purchase of camping and activity equipment to enable the Scout Group to offer a wider range of activities and experiences to a greater number of young people.

"We have upcoming camps arranged where this equipment will be put to good use. When our members' parents see that we invest in skilling our leaders, providing a challenging and fun programme and having the right equipment to make it all happen, it encourages people to become more involved and our members to enjoy more memorable experiences.

"We have used this money to invest in hiking and patrol tents, an outdoor fire shelter, a camp cooking hob and several industrial size cooking pans and trays, as well as climbing ropes and other activity items."

Back O’Th Moss Community Centre

Back O'Th Moss Community Centre is managed by a charity, run by volunteers. This grant will fund sporting and cooking equipment, to improve lifestyle-related outcomes for children and young people with SEN, many being from single-parent families and migrant communities.

Chris Furlong, chair of the volunteer-run community centre, said: “Thanks to the Youth Investment Fund, we received a sizeable grant to spend on the centre to improve our facilities and increase the opportunities for children in our area who uses them. We have now invested the money in new boxing equipment, and facilities in our youth club.

“We have invested in our kitchen and we have also invested in new equipment for our baby area. We also used it to upgrade our security systems. We thank the Department of Digital Culture Media and Sport and Children in Need for giving us this opportunity."

WHAG, formerly Women’s Housing Action Group

WHAG supports vulnerable young women and girls, many experiencing poor mental health and/or domestic abuse.

WHAG has been able to purchase/have the following work completed:

• Showers installed in all the flats, including upgrades to the tile/wall covering to improve the bathrooms aesthetically. This has been hugely welcomed by the young people who have only had access to a bath whilst residing at Gabriel Court.
• An integrated baby monitoring system throughout the whole building. This will afford the young people more freedom throughout the building to carry out essential household tasks and also enables them to attend evening activities in the communal lounge whilst their children are asleep in the flats.
• New laptops and iPad to loan whilst residing at Gabriel Court. This will allow the young people to maintain contact with friends/family and improve their IT skills.
• A large smart TV for the communal lounge to enable the young people to participate in online wellness activities like exercise classes, yoga and other wellbeing activities.
• A Nintendo Switch which can link up to the smart TV to play educational games and also allow them to be young people and play games with their peers whilst their children are asleep in their flats.
• A garden make-over including outdoor mood lighting, a built-in large seating area, artificial grass area and lots of outdoor activities and educational toys for the children to promote interaction with others and improve on their development. WHAG has financially contributed to the garden make over on top of the grant funding received from BBC Children In Need.
• Access to funded online Paediatric First Aid Courses for those young people unable to attend the face-to-face Paediatric First Aid training in April.
• A large supply of craft activity resources for the young people to do during evening/weekend activities. This includes the purchase of a sewing machine, arts and crafts supplies. Evening Support Workers actively encourage and teach the young people new life skills and making items from materials.
• A large supply of children’s indoor sensory toys and educational resources, this will assist with growing and development in the children who reside at Gabriel Court.
• A training package for six members of staff at Gabriel Court to train and then deliver Healthy/Positive Relationships courses to the young people at Gabriel Court. This training will be commenced imminently, and delivery of the courses will commence very soon afterwards.

Rochdale Connections Trust

This grant has funded the creation of three space hubs for counselling and therapy. This will help develop coping strategies for, and improve the health and wellbeing of, children and young people in Rochdale impacted by domestic abuse.

The funding allowed RCT to purchase a four-person hub which is located on the ground floor, a two-person hub which has been positioned on the second floor, which is the staff office and a third two-person hub that is located on the third floor.

The hubs will provide private meeting space for staff and other professionals, an area to conduct online meetings without disrupting colleagues in the office and to have one-to-one sessions with service users, where confidentiality is guaranteed (as the pods are soundproof).

Deputy CEO Bev Place said: "Initially we didn’t think we could apply for the funding as we could not commit to capital spend in the space of time available but then one of the team had the brilliant idea of purchasing hubs to provide us with space within our space.

"With the money available we were able to purchase one for each floor of our premises on Drake Street in Rochdale. Not only do the hubs look great, but they are being heavily used already.”

Deeplish Community Centre Association

This grant has funded a second-hand minibus, security and lighting, and a 15-laptop computer suite, for a community centre. It benefits children and young people largely from minority ethnic, low-income families, at risk of isolation and disengagement.

Operations manager Sohail Ahmad JP said: “We aim to use this fund to support, secure and expand our youth engagement and empowerment project.

"We aim to upgrade our digital facilities for young people's active engagement, so they can learn about digital technology. We also hope to have a drop-in digital facility, online learning, out of school and college educational and enrichment activities. We aim to help and support with educational achievements, further education, pre-employment, work placement and training opportunities.

"We also secured a good quality second hand mini bus, to connect with projects, places and be part of outreach activities. This will help and empower connecting young people with inspiring places and projects.

"This will also help young people from our neighbourhood to connect and explore heritage, cultures and broaden their diversity.

"This capital project is designed and delivered by young people. This is a true reflection of young people's participation and gives them the confidence, ownership and empowerment to make decision locally about their neighbourhood and what they wanted to achieve.

"We are pleased to make lasting difference in the lives of children and young people through youth investment funding."