Wokingham Youth Service

The main function of the Youth service is to offer social education and non-formal learning opportunities to young people.

Our aim is to deliver this service though a varied menu of positive activities, which young people voluntarily engage with during their leisure time.

This takes place in both building based work through six youth centres, ARC Counselling Service, village halls, mobiles and street work. This also takes place in schools and in other agencies through a team of 9 youth workers and 10 part time sessional youth support workers and service level agreements with voluntary youth agencies.

An important part of measuring our impact with young people is through Recorded Outcomes which track young people’s development.  This mostly focuses on soft outcomes, and Accredited Outcomes which are national accredited Awards such as the Berkshire Award, Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, Babysitting, First Aid, etc.

Involvement of young people is central to service delivery and young people are involved in decision making at Project level and also through Neighbourhood and cross borough forums. The Service also manages and supports the member of Youth Parliament. Young people have their own Youth Opportunities Fund which they manage on behalf of young people to make bids to.

Youth workers mainly work with groups, rather than in one-to-one situations. Young people’s involvement with youth workers is voluntary therefore the mix of young people at specific sessions is important to those taking part and the inclusion of young people known to their peers as “difficult” needs to be risk assessed and well managed, to ensure the continued attendance of current participants.

The Youth Service is committed to ensuring that all young people have the opportunity to engage in positive activities and has considerable experience of working with a wide range of young people.

Young people who have been identified via the CAF - Common Assessment Framework - system as needing extra support to access Positive Activities, will be either supported to join local youth service or voluntary sector partner’s provision or where the young person’s needs are greater and of more concern, then the young person will be eligible to receive support from a Positive Activities Inclusion Worker and their team and will be placed on their case load.

Visit the Active Youth website for more details.

Positive Activities Inclusion Project

The aim of the Positive Activities Inclusion Project is to provide time limited one-to-one support for vulnerable young people, identified though the CAF system, to support them to access positive activities. The PAI Project, part of the Youth Service, links in with various delivery partners who run activities, including the Youth Service, specialist and voluntary groups.

The team offers one-to-one support to vulnerable young people between the ages of 12-19 years who need help in overcoming their personal barriers and difficulties, in order to access positive activities. This is achieved by working along side other professionals to ensure the young people succeed and achieve. This may involve directly assisting them to make the transition to positive activities, or signposting young people to appropriate support services.

Contact details for Wokingham Youth Service

Please visit our Youth Service pages for information on facilities across the Borough.

Our Active Youth website has been designed by, and is run by, young people.  It gives details about services, events and positive activities for young people across Wokingham.