Youth Programme 2023 News

Our national attention getting holiday activity and food programme is back in 2023 with an intensive focus on Crediton and surrounding areas. This years programme will feature four days at Easter, 8 days in the summer and 2 days in the run up to Christmas. We will be working in partnership with the new Crediton Youth Services Team (who run the new youth club at Old Landscore School) and Turning Tides CIC (who run the Station Tea Rooms and the allotment, gardens and amphitheatre at Four Mills).

Additionally we are now launching a private Arts Award service – to work with individual or groups of young people to attain the National Qualification at Bronze or Silver level. Details of ways that young people can work towards Arts Award with us are included here. Groups or host organisations are encouraged to be in touch to discuss advisor surgery scenarios. We love to work in partnership.

We also are now exploring interest in a mid-Devon Youth Wellbeing Network with the Mid Devon and Culm Valley Primary Care Networks and our HAF delivery partners. A report released in 2020 identified Mid Devon as having the 7th highest youth food insecurity nationally, and the highest in Devon. Follow-on research by Devon Community Foundation identified that families near the need threshold are also amongst the least likely to engage with support services, and support service provision is weak in areas where need is characterised by insecurity rather than persistent need. Our local GP surgeries have shared that they are seeing a high level of mental health need in young people, as well as conditions that could be mitigated by healthier eating and activity. Community builders and social prescribers funded by Devon County Council and the NHS say that participation in Devon Connect and the Joy App are lowest in the mid-Devon area. Groups on the ground seem to be saying that acute capacity needs, and in numerous cases, dependency on volunteers, are preventing joined up working. We would love to hear from anyone interested in being part of conversations around these issues and exploring ways of collaborating going forward.