About


Rhema Youth Works is a Christian faith-based support project for young people in Hull.


We work with 13-19 year-olds, particularly those who are socially excluded or at risk of exclusion.

We offer holistic support to help young people through the important times of change or passage from one stage of their lives to another. These transitions vary in importance and consequences but they are all significant to the lives of young people. These transitions may be from education to work, the domestic transition, the housing transition or they may be moving out of the drug culture, moving into the realisation that school and education are important. We want to support and work with young people to make successful transitions within their lives.

We offer open-access evening sessions, a daytime Supported Learning Programme, one-to-one business start up advice and bookable recording studio sessions.

Rhema Youth Works is registered charity number 1075571.

Read our Annual Report for 2008/09 here.

Aims

To work with and build positive relationships with young people aged 13-19 years old. Resources are targeted at those young people who are socially and spiritually impoverished.

To respect young people for who they are, believe in them, listen to them, advocate on their behalf and provide activities that are free, safe and enjoyable.

To work with young people to increase their self-esteem and self-worth by enabling them to identify choices that will improve their life and support them in seeing those life choices realised.

To see young people reconnected with relevant training and, eventually, work opportunities.

See below for details of how we achieve our aims.

Background

In 1997 a group of volunteers were concerned about the number of young people that were gathering in Hull city centre. The volunteer team consisted of a professional youth worker, a drugs worker, a community worker, a student and a social researcher. As a response detached youth work was started in the city centre to talk to the young people about their lives, needs and dreams. The aim was always to listen to young people, then respond to what they were saying.

"The aim was always to listen to young people, then respond to what they were saying."

In July 1999 Rhema Youth Works was started through a successful bid to the Neighbourhood Support Fund. The grant covered the costs of a full time manager and funds for youth work activities and support work. Rhema Youth Works was started as a partnership between The Hull Lighthouse Project, Hull Community Church and Eagle House Charitable Trust.

In early 2000, after forming professional relationships with a number of young people and listening to their views, we opened an evening drop-in based in a local community hall. Through the drop-in we provided hot food and drink, activities and started to develop daytime support packages for the young people we met.

In 2001 we started the 'Pulse Project'- a volunteer-based peer life support project. This enabled us to employ a volunteer co-ordinator and offer training and resources to our volunteers.

We employed our first part-time support worker in 2001, then increased to two part-time workers to develop and maintain our support work with young people.

In April 2004 we opened our Resource Centre for young people. This offers us a permanent base to work from. We facilitate most of our support work and activities from the centre. We have a number of social activities for young people such as pool, IT, café area and access to the internet IT.

The centre has a dedicated IT suite with Broadband Internet access. This enables young people access to IT courses, taster sessions and IT multimedia activities.
We offer a number of different issue-based sessions as well as accredited courses and training. We also offer creative activities such as Art, DJ workshops, music activities, dance and drama. All of our current activities are free to young people.

In May 2005 we started our Supported Learning Programme through a six week pilot project with Kelvin Hall School. This has now developed into a successful four day programme working with young people in Years 10 and 11 from across the city.

Since starting, Rhema Youth Works has developed in it's administration and structure and is a charity in it's own right, charity number 1075571.

How we achieve our aims

Support - individual support, support groups, finding out what the needs of individual young people are i.e. practical, physical, educational or spiritual.

Training - we support young people in getting involved in good quality, relevant training. We will help young people to access the training that will best suit the requirements of the young person. There are already a number of training resources within the city that we refer young people towards.

Activities - we will work with young people to provide activities that will have both a social and educational edge to them, such as recreational activities, day trips, sports and residentials.

Information - we want young people to make informed choices about their lives. We will therefore offer information and literature on issues such as drug use, sexual health, housing issues, faith and belief.

Advocacy Work - raising awareness of the needs of the young people we are working with. Speaking to and working with other professionals and voluntary organisations within the city and by attending multi agency forums.