Sandhurst Youth - Community and Church Youth Work

Sandhurst Youth became an independent charity on 1st January 2019 with the objective of serving young people both in the community and in the churches in Sandhurst. Currently there are six trustees, three nominated by the PCC and three nominated by the council. In the long term there will be a seventh trustee nominated by the young people of Sandhurst themselves.
Mike, our youth worker, working with the Youth Work Team, is committed to supporting the young people of St Michael’s and encouraging them to grow spiritually and in all areas of their life. An early task was to overhaul the mailing lists as a number of families have moved away from the area, or don’t attend anymore. The work tends therefore to be targeted at each young person as we don’t have any big groups. This year we have welcomed several new Year 6 young people. Four young people did Youth Alpha led by Angela Harper and were confirmed in July.
Discussions around faith range from why can’t we have Coke and Maltesers for communion, to could a Christian be a spy. Faith is a journey and it is a honour to travel alongside young people and learn from both sides.
On Sunday mornings we run Reach which operates in parallel with the 9.30 service, and from 6-8.00 pm each Sunday there’s "Dream Big" youth club run in the Seeby Hall. Various equipment including table football, table tennis, pool, and video games are available, and the evening is open to all young people aged 11 upwards. Whilst attendance to date has been patchy, relationships with the young people are steadily being built. The group has done some fund raising for charities such as a "danceathon" for Children in Need.
Sandhurst Youth work in the community includes regular detached work (hot chocolate proves very popular during winter evenings!), and we successfully ran the summer programme at the Memorial Park for a week at the start of the summer holidays, and supported Angela running the "Glow Party" at Halloween which proved very popular with the younger children.
Spending time standing in a car park listening to a young man explaining how he was alright in year 7 at school but now in year 8 he just swears at teachers. You ask "why, what has changed" the response is that he just finds it difficult to handle lessons and teachers are unfair. So flipping the scene around we ask him how he would feel as a teacher being sworn at, are teachers not human and don’t like being sworn at. The young man thinks for the moment and responds "yeah it is out of order to swear at them, yeah your right, I never thought about it" .

Conversations like these take place at different times and are just a conversation that can plant a seed in a young person’s life. 
We have also launched a mentoring scheme for Sandhurst based on the nationally recognised XLM programme; four volunteers have been trained and cleared for safeguarding, and one mentee (from church) is now receiving regular support. This is aimed at older young people (15+) and we supplement this with one-to-one support in the Christian journey for the young people leaving home.
None of the work would be possible without the enthusiastic support of the volunteers, and of course we always welcome more. Young people are a lot less scary, and a lot more fun, than you might imagine!

Come And Talk To Us

For more information please see our website sandhurstyouth.org.uk or talk to:
David Percival - Project Leader for Sandhurst Youth
Mike Gower - our Youth Worker
Liz Percival - who leads the volunteer team in the church.