Many parent carers expressed their concern over the future of Bridging Projects following the change towards a community led model for Youth Services in 2014. Wiltshire Council made a commitment to continue to support positive activities for young people with SEND, and ring-fenced money to enable this to happen, when the decision was made by Cabinet to move to the new model. Wiltshire Council held discussions with local community groups and other providers to ensure that new services were set up as soon as possible and the following positive activity clubs are now in operation across Wiltshire:
Barnardo's will be running positive activity clubs called Phoenix Youth Clubs in the
following towns:-
- Marlborough Youth Centre (St. Margarets Mead, Marlborough, Wiltshire SN8 4BA): Mondays 6.30-9pm
- Devizes leisure centre - Formally Southbroom Youth and Community Development Centre (Southbroom Rd, Devizes, Wiltshire SN10 5AB): Tuesdays 6.30-9pm
- Chippenham - Redlands Nursery (Brook Street, Chippenham, Wiltshire SN14 0JE): Wednesdays 6.30-9pm
- Trowbridge (71 Fore Street, Trowbridge, Wiltshire BA14 8ET): Thursdays 6.30-9pm
- Calne (Marden House, New Road, Calne, Wiltshire SN11 0JJ): Tuesdays 6.30-8.30pm
The clubs are run by an experienced coordinator with at least one
member of staff for every 5 young people. The staff and volunteers
will include some trained young people who can act as mentors to
the club members.
The clubs are informal and fun. They are open to all young people
with a disability, however if the staffing is not sufficient to meet
your needs, Barnardo’s may discuss the possibility of a carer or
family member attending too.
If you would like to know more about attending one of the
Phoenix clubs please phone the Barnardo’s team on 07590 624260
UPDATE - New Calne Youth Club
From 10th January 2017, Barnardo's will be running a new Youth Club on Tuesday evenings, 7-9pm for young people aged 12-25 years at Marden House, Calne. For more information/ to book a place, please call 07590 624260.
Salisbury - Our Club
Our Club (formerly the Salisbury Bridging Project), for children and Young people aged 13-18, is now being managed by South Wilts Mencap.
The club provides a variety of activities for young people with SEN and/or disabilities and meets on Thursdays at St Francis Church, Beatrice Road, Salisbury SP1 3PN, 6.30-8.30pm. They have a dedicated youth space and will open the club for approximately 40 weeks of the year, with extra dates in the major holidays.
If you want to know more, please contact the club leader directly – Dolly Burnett – 07795803775
In Tisbury the new club has been provided by Seeds4Success since October 2014.
This free group is for young people with SEND aged 13 – 25 and runs on Tuesday evenings, 6.30pm-9pm.
They have been delivering this service from a variety of venues in the Tisbury area, ranging from the leisure centres, to social clubs and the Children’s Centre and have have been using minibuses to get people from Mere, West & East Knoyle and Hindon to the sessions.
From Tuesday 7th April 2015 the sessions will run from Seeds4Success’s new base at Mere Youth Centre, The Recreation Ground, Queens Road, Mere from 6.30-9pm on a Tuesday evening.
They will continue to be able to access the Wiltshire Council minibuses for this project and therefore they are currently still able to offer transport to and from sessions. This will now leave Tisbury Children’s Centre at 6pm and travel through Hindon, East & West Knoyle on route to Mere. They anticipate that young people will be back in Tisbury between 9.30-9.45pm each week.
So far young people have been offered 3D modelling, cooking and life skills projects and they will be working with group members to decide two new programmes for the summer term 2015. With the new location there will be the opportunity to use the recreation ground and hopefully the multi-use games area as the evenings get lighter, as well as the other usual facilities offered within the youth centre building.
The project gives young people the opportunity to develop their personal and social skills as well as increasing their confidence in some physical activities and enhancing their practical skills. In order for Seeds4Success to identify the needs and interests of their members, they ask new members to complete the following questionnaire as well as a parental consent form (if you have not already done so) and these need to be returned to: Mere DC4YP, The Recreation Ground, Queens Road, Mere BA12 6EP, or bring them along to your first session. The information is used to help them develop future programmes as well as helping them create a database of those young people accessing their service. Seeds4Success regret that they are unable to accept new members until they move to their new venue on 7th April 2015.
Please contact Jaki Farrell on 07585723824 or email Jaki@seeds4success.org.uk if you need to find out more/register to attend. Click here to see the group’s latest poster.
For details of these and other leisure activities please visit our What’s on pages.
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