Youth Shedz is an exciting initiative that aims to provide a safe place for young people to explore who they are. Many of the young people we know have had to deal with issues at a young age, and beneath the surface, they may be coping with a whole bunch of things ; this can sometimes make coping with life and school really difficult – and we want to respond to this . Youth Shedz is different to a youth club, as we are not about large numbers of young people joining together to do activities – although that is really important too! Youth Shedz is for the young person who may be the one who always misbehaves, or plays up in school, or is very withdrawn and can potentially be overlooked in a larger group. The very ethos of Youth Shedz is to support those Young People who are at risk of being rejected by, or cannot cope with mainstream society. Young people need to be listened to, encouraged, and sometimes challenged and we hope that Youth Shedz can help to provide that space. .
We work closely with local police, schools, youth services, town councils, parents – and of course young people! We have already got Shedz across North Wales, from Holyhead High School across to Denbighshire. Each Shed is an organically grown space, with young people involved all the way, and we have a code of conduct and principles that each shed needs to follow. Youth Shedz have developed a Tookit and Partner License for other communities to follow if they want to plant a Shed in their own area, which involves finding a Shed Champion to help to pioneer and lead the project ; this helps us to spread the ethos of Youth Shedz and grow the vision – and is a great example of co-production and partnership work.
The charity was founded by Scott Jenkinson in 2017 in response to anti-social behaviour of a couple of boys in Denbigh – to find out more about Scott’s story, to read our code of conduct and principles, and generally find out about Youth Shedz, please have a look at the website: https://www.youthshedz.com
If you feel a Youth Shed would be good in your area, and would like to find out more about the toolkit, please contact sian@youthshedz.com
We would love to hear from you !