Youth Work and Youth Services: Practice example - Youth Moves, Bristol

ACTION

Youth Moves began in 2005 as an initiative by the Knowle West Youth Partnership, a consortium including three youth clubs and a Bristol Council youth work team, to enable an application for EU funding. The partnership accessed around £1.1m over four years from the EU funding streams Single Regeneration Budget and Urban 2, to co-ordinate a new range of neighbourhood youth services for Knowle West, one of South Bristol's most deprived areas.

Youth Moves' core team of 10 youth workers, supported by volunteers and sessional workers including 15 mentors, work with between 1,000 and 1,200 eight- to 19-year-olds each year, through a mixture of universal and targeted activities. This includes participation project Youth Opinions, music, arts, sports and school-based activities, youth club provision, outreach, mentoring and social action opportunities. "We try to be there for young people at every stage of their journey to adulthood," explains Youth Moves manager Alistair Dale. "Quite a lot of services these days are time-limited; you get something for 12 weeks, once you hit the threshold [for intervention], then it stops. We're very much about young people coming at any time, and the door being open."