The Youth Association

The Youth Association have been delivering street-based youth work for decades and, in recent years, have developed initiatives such as StreetSmart, StreetVoice and StreetSafe, all of which take a different approach to meeting young people’s needs at street level.

The scheme aims to contribute to a reduction in violence and crime uptake among young people and is underpinned by increased levels of knowledge and understanding of key issues, improved mental wellbeing and increased hopes and aspirations.  These aims have led The Youth Association to pursue the following outcomes in this project:

1. Young people improve their understanding of crime and violence
2. Young men develop their understanding of masculinity
3. Young people improve their mental wellbeing and self-awareness

Youth workers may also run off-shoot programmes, working more intensively with young people on Drill music, sports and arts, both in an exploratory and a creative capacity.

Alongside the street-based work, The Youth Association team will deliver some single gender work, allowing youth workers to explore certain topics with young men.  Positive masculinity sessions will use creative methods to find out what young men feel about school life, home life and social life.  Workshops will focus on positive vs toxic masculinity, positive mental wellbeing, independent living skills and male role models.