Youth First is a youth work charity for Lewisham’s 8-19s (8-25 with SEND).

We use the power of youth work relationships to give young people the skills and resilience to become happy, successful adults. Working with 1,700 young people annually.   The young people attending our youth clubs and Adventure Playgrounds are predominately from the 10% most deprived wards in the country with a high proportion of BAME (76%) and SEND (29%) taking part in activities.   Satisfaction of young people is high (77% built a positive youth worker relationship, 62% more confident, 61% improved wellbeing because of our youthwork).

We deliver:

• Open access at 5 youth clubs and 4 adventure playgrounds
• Targeted projects including street-based teams in 3 wards, Young Londoners Fund diversionary carnival skills, and MOPAC street robbery awareness in schools  
• 121 mentoring providing individualised support for over 100 people a year, working with a wide group of partners.  We enable young people to build confidence in the strengths they have so to build the resilience to come through unique and tough personal barriers.
• Streetbased youth work – meeting young people on the streets and providing a listening ear, signposting them to services in the borough and creating a fun and relaxed atmosphere.

The voice of young people is a golden thread throughout the organisation.  It guides of attitudes and actions.  Relationships are key to building young peoples confidence, our staff team help to set the atmosphere through having a ‘can do’ attitude that welcomes and encourages with a strong sense of fun.