Looking to the future

Our plans for 2023… and beyond

One of our goals is to provide the best possible services to young people. How will we continue to do this in the future?

This is represented within our business plan. We are keen to align ourselves with good practice and make sure our programmes are fun, interactive, safe and engaging. The importance to our work of effective relationships with young people can’t be underestimated.

We emphasise these points because over the years there’s no need for constant change in our approach to our work with young people. We believe in the importance of retaining services that work and are seen to be productive. Our work in schools, among our young women and in our age-based sections continues to prove popular and effective, building resilience, confidence and hope for all our young people.

We are not immune to change however, and seek over the next year to adapt where we need to and strengthen and embed where necessary. The following themes have been identified:

  • Expanding our schoolwork programme into other primary and junior schools. Raising our profile through potential engagement in school assemblies

  • Introducing our work into secondary schools with a more specific focus around one-to-one mentoring to help prevent anti-social behaviour and to build greater resilience among young people

  • Continuing to review our evening provision responding to the needs of the different age groups - in particular at Juniors - to rethink our approach and activities because of the growing numbers. At Seniors, we’ll explore options around training and employment. Within all the age groups and in our girls work, the impact of child poverty and the social media will become important themes across our delivery

  • Improving the effectiveness of our partnership work by continuingly looking to see what our young people can benefit from elsewhere and where there are gaps in our provision that we help connect our members with elsewhere

Our services will always be restrained by funding shortages, which have been a particular challenge this year. We’ll continue to make sure we get the most from our existing resources - not least a very committed and competent group of paid staff and volunteers.

We’re now more than 85 years old.
Our longevity is down to the support of people like you.

Thanks for reading our Annual Review. If you’d like to help us by lending us time or expertise, or simply by introducing us to businesses or partners we could work with, we’d love to hear from you.

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