18,000+ young people contacted Youth Commission

Thursday 26 March 2020

More than 18,000 young people and children made contact with the Youth Commission in 2019, and 6,768 received its services.

This is according to the group's annual report for last year.

One in eight Bailiwick children are registered Youth Commission Service Users.

It is a local charity aiming to make "a real difference to the lives of children and young people on a daily basis". 

Pictured: The Youth Commission has released its annual report for 2019. 

Mark Thompson, Youth Commission Interim Chair said: “This annual report shows what a wide range of services we provide to meet the needs of young people across our community. We have contact with a great many children in Guernsey and Alderney through our activities in schools and the community but some of our biggest impact is the specific intervention with individuals who find themselves in very difficult circumstances.

"I am very proud of the work we do and so grateful to all of our staff and volunteers for their tremendous dedication in all the ways they are helping young people to reach their full potential.  We have a very strong relationship with the Committee for Education, Sport and Culture who commission much of our work and I hope all our funders and supporters find this report useful to help them understand the value of the support they give us in our work.”

Pictured: The Youth Commission offers a range of emotional health and wellbeing support.

In its report, the Youth Commission picked out the following highlights: 

6,768 children and young people accessed our provision 

2,626 sessions were delivered by our team  

Support

1,402 one-to-one sessions were provided for emotional health and wellbeing support 

24 new volunteer mentors

81 group sessions delivered to young people 

DofE

165 awards were achieved between 1 January 2019 – 31 December 2019.  The Youth Commission supported a group of home schooled young people who worked towards their Bronze award, a Gold residential experience was offered in Lihou for 11 young people, the award was introduced to Guernsey Prisoners and two presentations took place at St James’ and Buckingham Palace during 2019 to celebrate our Gold Award Holders.

Learning

The number of young people referring into our service from the LGBTQ+ lessons increased. 

We ran information stands in Secondary Schools to raise awareness of the National Anti-bullying Week. 

Community

We delivered 88 sessions of taster projects called GET involved project with young people which gave opportunities to try new activities in sports, creativity and outdoor education.

Youth Clubs across the islands continued to open its doors delivering 564 Youth Club sessions throughout the year for young people to access. A total of 12 young people attended this year's residential week which took place across Liverpool and Manchester.

Voice

Young People were consulted on issues from the Justice system to the Children and Young People's Plan with young people represented on the Police led Community Advisory Group.

Supported the Island’s schools to achieve their Rights Respecting Schools Award.

The Article 12 project provides advocacy for children & young people by representing their voice in meetings and helping them take part in decisions that affect their lives. During 2019 we extended this service to looked after children.

Pictured: image from the Report. 

Charlie Cox, the Youth Commission's Chief Executive Officer, said: “I am delighted to be able to share with our Community the Youth Commission for Guernsey and Alderney’s 2019 annual report. This report further evidences our service delivering on our commitment to children and young people that we will support them to become ambitious to reach their full potential.

"There are so many highlights in this report, but we hope that if our service users, supporters and funders can take anything from the report, it is that the Youth Commission is a local charity that makes a real difference to the lives of our children and young people. We would like to thank firstly our service users who made each day at the Youth Commission special and different, secondly to our commissioners/partners and donors without whose valuable support we would not have been able to deliver the level of provision we offered in 2019. Finally, thanks to our amazing staff and volunteers who work tirelessly to make our projects and services come to life each day. We look forward to continuing this great work during 2020”.

Nick Hynes, Head of Inclusion and Services for Children & Schools, at States of Guernsey: “The Youth Commission’s role continues to develop and is perceived as a well-respected, reliable, high quality provider of Youth Services across the Bailiwick. It has a positive reputation which is well established amongst young people, professionals who work with young people and the community generally. It is considered an inclusive, dynamic, professional, forward-looking organisation which, retains its focus on addressing the needs of young people and their families across the Bailiwick.”