4Youth along with North Yorkshire Youth (our commissioned partners in the voluntary sector), provide a wide range of drop-in activities across the county. These are often described as 'positive activities' or 'things to do'.
Many of these positive activities take place in different local settings. These settings often depend on adapting what is available locally and they may range from dedicated youth centres or buildings for young people, as well as village halls or community centres, through to mobile youth centres or even 'street based' locations that are sometimes described as 'outreach' or 'detached' settings.
Activities take place throughout the week, including Friday evenings, weekends, and during school holiday periods. Young people may simply want to drop-in and 'hang out' with their mates, but more personalised support around particular issues is also available.
What's happening in my area?
If you'd like to find out more about our drop-in activities, please contact us using the details at the bottom of this page.
All drop-in activities:
are informal and run by qualified and CRB checked youth workers;
support the principles of informal education and learning; and
are designed to prevent young people from engaging in anti-social or negative behaviour, and contribute toward enabling young people to meet the five Every Child Matters outcomes. These are; be healthy, stay safe, enjoy and achieve, make a positive contribution and achieve economic wellbeing.
The five Every Child Matters outcomes:
Be healthy
Many of the settings have been designed, equipped and decorated by young people and include a lot of useful, stimulating and easily accessible information about a range of health related issues that affect young peoples lives.
Informal topical group work sessions (for example on sexual health, body image, relationships, illegal/legal harmful substances), are often run by trained and trusted youth workers. This helps reduce teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
Stay safe
Safety is our number one priority for young people. Youth work helps to keep young people safe. It builds emotional resilience, judgment and decision making in young people.
All settings and activities are assessed by our qualified and CRB cleared youth workers for health & safety risks.
Young people take risks. Youth workers are able to provide drop-in activities that manage risk whilst also ensuring that young people are stimulated, have fun and experience a challenge that may provide a new skill or insight that helps them as they grow into responsible young adults.
Our drop-in activities are rooted in a professionally recognised culture of informal learning. This helps young people to explore sensitive personal issues and to develop skills and knowledge that enable personal, social and emotional well-being to be secured. Often relationship difficulties within family settings are resolved through the informal intervention of a skilled youth worker.
Enjoy and achieve
Young people choose of their own free will to attend drop-in activities. We believe that they do this because they enjoy them and because they gain a benefit in doing so.
Activities are wide ranging and are usually determined by young people themselves. They may for example include the arts (dance, drama, music, visual, performing), sports, outdoor activities, social events, games, trips and visits, cultural, regional, national or international exchanges.
Make a positive contribution
Young people are encouraged to participate and make decisions about the drop-in activities that take place.
Young people often take on responsibility for certain aspects of a drop-in session such as helping to set the room up, make refreshments, help with planning and sometimes delivering parts of the session.
Some young people go on to become volunteers, undertake youth work apprenticeships and formal professional training and come to work in the service.
Enabling young people to make a positive contribution is a key learning tool that youth workers use to support the personal and social development of young people.
Achieve economic wellbeing
Many of the drop-in activities are designed to help and support young people to navigate a successful route through the changes that they are experiencing as they grow from being dependant children into independent young adults.
Youth work helps young people achieve economic wellbeing. It supports young people back into learning and training. It can provide a route back into mainstream education for the most marginalised young people.
'v' have also sent some cash to North Yorkshire to set up a team of advisers who will help create new opportunities for young people to volunteer and give you plenty of tips on how to do it yourself.
The National Youth Agency works in partnership with a wide range of public, private and voluntary sector organisations to support and improve services for young people.
