Cheshire Connect and Warrington Youth Club (WYC) have a strong partnership and Dave McNicholl their CEO has had to make some big changes during the past month both for staff and the services they provide in responding to Covid-19.
Within a week WYC staff developed a programme called ‘Youth Zone at Home’ which has seen the team use social media and the website to interact with children and young people with challenges, cookery sessions, arts sessions, drama sessions and an online sports programme.
Working with more than 300 children the interaction on the social media channels has increased by over 250%. This support has been vital as many of the young people and children are vulnerable and likely to become further socially isolated during the lockdown period.
The WYC team have also been using phone calls, text, social media and zoom calls to make contact and the feedback has been really positive as young people have reported back that they feel supported and have been able to share concerns they have with the team.
WYC have recently joined one of our new online peer support groups to share experiences and practices with other charities.