Youth Shedz: helping young people thrive

Scott Jenkinson, Founder and CEO of Youth Shedz, shares how his own life experiences led him to setting up the small charity and how the Foundation’s support has helped the organisation to develop and start to generate sustainable income.

My passion for supporting people who have had a difficult start in life comes from my own experiences. I was a heroin addict for 18 years, living on the streets on and off, and in and out of prison. What changed my life, and ultimately helped me get clean, was my faith, my new found passion for education and being around people who cared about me and believed in me.

I’ve always wanted to help people who have been on a similar journey to me. Many people like myself, who have been through ‘the system’ and been in prison, have developed amazing skills and they’re just using them in the wrong way. I created my own training course to help people who are coming out of prison or recovering from addiction and other challenges, to recognise their skills and contribute to the community in a positive way.

While I was doing this, I was asked to support some young people living in a homelessness prevention project in Denbigh for Grwp Cynefin. I knew I had to do something different to my usual course. I met with the young people and, together, we went on a journey of understanding what drives antisocial behaviour. We learned about adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and realised that all of us in the group – including myself – had been through traumatic events in our childhoods, such as being in care or domestic abuse. These stressful experiences impact brain development, affect behaviour and are associated with increased risk for physical and mental health problems.

Contributing to the community

We wanted to help young people heal and overcome these adverse childhood experiences and develop their pro-social identity. Young people can be protected from the effects of ACEs and start to thrive if they have access to their own safe place, positive and supportive role models, and a way to contribute to the community.

At this point, we didn't have a place to meet, or any resources. But the manager of the homelessness prevention project, Mair Edwards, said they had an empty garage we could use. And that was the start of Youth Shedz in 2017 – that little garage became a hub for those young people. We remain forever grateful to Mair and Grwp Cynefin giving us this opportunity – we most certainly wouldn’t be here if not for her support.

We got the young people themselves to come up with a list of principles for what Youth Shedz is. Some of the young people we work with feel labelled with ‘antisocial behaviour’. But they actually wanted to do something good in the community. So that became one of the principles - Youth Shedz is for our community, not just ourselves. A lot of young people who've been in care can get used to getting things given to them, and they are often transient and may not feel connected to their local community. But we want to give them an opportunity to do something purposeful for the good of the community and build their pro-social behaviour and identity.

Creating an environment for young people to thrive

Our vision is for Youth Shedz to be a place that offers a sense of purpose, identity and belonging for young people. Many of them, especially children in care who don't have that family support structure, are at risk of being recruited or manipulated county lines gangs. I got involved in gangs and selling drugs as a young person because it gave me a sense of purpose and belonging. Youth Shedz is an alternative to this, it’s a safe place for young people to get that sense of purpose, identity and belonging, of being a ‘Shedder’.

One thing we’re clear about is that Youth Shedz isn’t a youth club. Young people need a space to hang out, but we don't want a lot of kids gathering with no structure or purpose. We often work with vulnerable young people, who are referred to us from social services or the police, so we stick to very small groups, usually about six to eight young people of a similar age, so that we can build intentional relationships with each person. The Youth Shed becomes their own little space. We want to meet the young people where they’re at and walk with them into a brighter future. When the groups come together, they don't know each other but working together on a community project together helps them develop that sense of purpose and belonging.

There’s usually three elements to the Youth Shed sessions – there’s time for them to do whatever they want to do recreationally, they work on their community project together, and then we always sit down and eat together. One of our principles is ‘we eat together, we be together’ and this brings us all together and adds to the family feel. For some young people that have not had the best family background, Youth Shedz has become like a family for them.

Support to develop the toolkit and franchise model

People started seeing what we were doing with Youth Shedz on social media and getting in touch because they wanted to do something similar in their community. We realised that we have something unique because Youth Shedz has been organically developed by young people, for young people. A lot of organisations try and create this, but it doesn’t always work because it’s not being guided and developed by the young people themselves. Whereas the way we approach setting up a new Youth Shed is by getting to know the young people and what they want and need. They come up with the ideas and they decide what they want to do. That’s the reason it works – because we allow them to take ownership of the project.

Some of our young people developed a toolkit using the original principles, outlining everything you need to start your own Youth Shed, which we could share with other organisations wanting to do a similar thing. But one of the biggest challenges we were facing is that organisations would want to replicate our model but they didn’t share our ethos or approach to working with young people. So we needed to ensure that we were partnering with the right people, with organisations that understand the challenges facing vulnerable young people and care leavers.

This where the Foundation’s support comes in. The Foundation’s development support paid for us to get consultancy support from a franchising specialist. He helped us develop policies, procedures and licensing agreements around sharing our toolkit, who does what and what the expectations are from each party, and ensured there were no legal loopholes so that we can protect our model and identity.

The Foundation also paid for me to go on a trading and sustainability course, which has been amazing. I’ve learned so much about the charity sector and why we need to charge for our services and shouldn’t be afraid of that. I've come from living on the streets, to becoming a teacher, to starting a small charity and now being a director. A lot of this is really new for me, and this course has opened my eyes and shown me that there are ways for us to generate a sustainable income while staying true to our vision.