Invest Local Hubberston and Hakin, focus on youth engagement.
Located on the edge of Milford Haven in an area with limited social and economic opportunities for young people and with an estimated youth population of around 2500 in the wider Milford Haven area, youth engagement has been an important point of focus for Invest Local Hubberston and Hakin right from the start.
After recognizing early on in their Driving Change Plan's the imperative need to provide more opportunities and resources for young people to access in Hubberston and Hakin and moreover throughout the Milford Haven area, Invest Local Hubberston and Hakin developed a strategic partnership with Milford Youth Matters (MYM).
Milford Youth Matters is a charity that supports young people across the wider Milford Haven area. Being one of the few third sector charities in the area aimed at providing youth service provision, the focus for Milford Youth Matters is not only on engaging and connecting with young people, but also on learning, upskilling, employment, and most importantly investing in the potential of young people, moving from crisis to self-management. MYM has been working closely with Invest Local Hubberston and Hakin since 2018 leading its youth work. BCT recently spoke to Dayle Gibby from the charity to discuss Milford Youth Matters work with the Invest Local Hubberston and Hakin forum and MYM’s positive impact on the area.
Dayle opens the discussion by giving us an outline of the services provided by MYM and how they have implemented those to help bring significant change about for the young people of Milford Haven.
“At MYM we do a wide range of everything employment support, and education support but also providing young people with opportunities to engage in safe and positive activities. I would say though, we look to implement two key principles and practices in our work to support young people in Milford Haven. One is what I would call a universal service, an open access provision and that is our youth clubs, our drop-in facilities for young people to come in, to feel safe to engage in an activity like in Hubberston we run Toastie Tuesday, where they can come in get a free toastie, there’s pool, there’s ping pong- and there’s a range of activities.
“Now admittedly that’s brilliant when young people come in and do activities, and you can run whatever activities meet their needs, but those are just a tool to engage them, the real work comes, in spending that time and having that conversation engaging with those young people and getting to know them that’s where the true youth work is. So those two principles are key in our work in supporting young people.”
One of Invest Local Hubberston and Hakin’s first moves toward creating a positive space for youth engagement in the community was to fund the reintroduction of Hubberston Youth Club. The service has been successfully running for over a year now and has become a staple resource and socializing space for local young people, often seeing around 30-80 members a night.
Dayle tells us that: “We at Milford Youth Matters received funding from our Invest Local forum and we previously had a youth club, many years ago in Hubberston and Hakin that was closed by the local authority and in 2019 that was brought back by the Invest Local Forum through Milford Youth Matters to deliver nightly sessions. So, we run a youth club provision 48 weeks of the year for young people around the ages of 11 to 17.”
Invest Local also funded a Youth Worker Trainee for one year specifically focusing on Hubberston youth club, the provision of which had such a positive impact, the role is now due to be extended. Implementing this service not only created a valuable focus on time and activities with Hubberston young people but also allowed for an insightful youth-led consultation with Hubberston to take place creating youth involvement in the Driving Change Plan that is currently under development and leading the next stages of progress in their projects. Hubberston youth club also organised a specific consultation with young people ahead of the Invest Local Hubberston and Hakin's bid for the community asset transfer of the Gelliswick Bay area.
MYM has also got the ground covered in providing a chance for training, upskilling and personal development for Milford Haven’s young people. Having created other projects such as a pop-up store, where young people are responsible for customer service. The pop-up store sells uniforms, sportswear, and bags, selling items that are both new and pre-loved.
Through this project, the young people involved learn about budgeting, customer service, team skills, challenges and finding solutions. They also work with wider community groups and have helped set up a voucher system that the local food bank provider issues to its customers, as young people recognised that people still wish to keep their dignity in tough times. MYM is also keen to support young people in relevant training and education opportunities, working with several training providers to try and ensure young people are supported into relevant courses, again with the support of the Invest Local group. This is especially relevant for Milford Haven which is receiving a lot of investment from the Swansea Bay growth deal.
During Covid MYM worked with the Forum to set up a specific hub for young people offering both financial and mental health support as well as Covid secure social activities.
With the Cost of Living crisis presenting a real sense of concern for many families this winter, raising issues around how to heat homes and afford food. Milford Youth Matters consulted with young people to create Winter Warm Packs, which were distributed to young people that were known to the youth centre. MYM’s approach focused on heating the individual, rather than the whole house and they created packs that contained, hot water bottles, a fleece hoody, travel mug and a snood. Feedback showed that the items were valuable and needed, and staff has since heard about the further need for those who will struggle this winter. In light of this new information, they are rolling the service out again, with further funding from Invest Local Hubberston and Hakin and Ascona Group ltd, a local business.
Dayle explains how the provision was delivered and how further education and services around the issue are being developed: “We do a lot around the cost of living, we provided young people with Winter warmer packs to heat the individual not the home, luckily, we at Milford Youth Matters had funding from elsewhere for about 30 of these packs at about £25 each, but the Invest Local forum then agreed to fund another 50 packs so that all members will have access to the provision. We’re also looking at not just providing meal packs but looking at educating and how do we help to upskill young people by saying for example, not just here you go here’s a meal pack but opening that discussion so you say that you’ve got a loaf of bread, you’ve got this in your cupboard this is what you can do to make use of it. So, we’re trying to teach young people and educate them to move from a point of crisis to a point of self-management.
“Where our Winter Warmer packs are concerned there is an understanding that it won’t just be young people who need these, so it will be a provision that’s open to the community as well, Rose is leading on the community element of this so there will be a stock of items to access on a referral basis. The Invest Local forum has decided to purchase similar items that anybody will be able to access, like fleece blankets, hot water bottles and small flasks.”
MYM recognised the need to support young people in the area, as they are made aware of the challenges faced by their families. They also hold ‘Toasty Tuesday’, which provides a way to engage with young people, whilst providing a warm space, food, and a safe space to be themselves. In addition to this support, Milford Youth Matters work in connection with a range of local clubs and organisations including the local football club, where they run cooking sessions, and budgeting skills programs. They found that it both fed those in need and they had the opportunity to upskill at the same time.
It's clear also that these services create a vital safe space for MYM’s workers to learn more about the developing needs of their young service users and their families in the light of the developing cost of living crisis as Dayle explains “The worrying thing for us as a service provider is the 500 days from January in how we support young people and families in January, February and March, because we can only anticipate the cost of living crisis getting worse and needs increasing, but also long term after April the 1st currently there’s a lot of funding from Welsh Government or Local Authorities but that’s got to be spent by March the 31st.
“It’s fantastic that we can get access to that funding but what comes after March 31st, so we have to forward plan for that. What we’re finding from our local food bank is that young people and maybe some families too don’t perceive themselves to be as worse off as other families in our community but actually, they could be potential clients of local food banks. So, we need to think of unique and interesting ways to address that and food is a great equalizer put some toasties out, put some pizzas out it brings people together and we can silence a room by providing a hot meal.”
It is clear to see that Invest Local Hubberston and Hakin have been focused and active in their goal to achieve a stronger and more varied landscape of resources for their youth population. Their partnership with Milford Youth Matters and moreover the applied youth engagement work of MYM with Milford Youth club, has not only provided truly valuable opportunities for the young people involved in its projects but has also served as an incredible move to create a positive access route, to vital support for Milford’s young people in times of crisis that is now embedded in the community.
The club has also provided a space for discussion for Milford’s young people, most of the projects are provided as young people asked for them and the club ‘delivered’, ensuring a consistent youth engagement process and importantly, a place where Milford’s young people feel they can be heard.