Supporting Young People and Communities in Reading

SYC supports young people and communities in Reading through four main activities:

Schools Work: lunch time programmes, mentoring, mental health support and teaching. We deliver up to 40 hours per week on subjects such as bullying, anger management and dealing with conflict. Including supporting students to complete Level 1 Certificates in Skills for Training, Employment and Personal Development.

Community Work: we support and help people to run street parties and fun days in their neighbourhood, providing safe spaces for conversations and activities that build social cohesion, bringing positive influences to the lives of young people and the wider community. We also run monthly Community Dinners (originally as an adjunct to our Dealing with Depression course), and other similar gatherings.

Training and Coaching: The training we provide includes our Families (parenting) Course and Dealing with Depression course (both responses to local needs), as well as bespoke training for local charities involved with youth work, mentoring and community work. Our personalised coaching is for adult leaders who deal with young people and / or communities, such as secondary school headteachers, youth workers, higher education professionals, vicars and church leaders.

Youth Work: when we have sufficient funding we will continue our youth cafes and other youth programmes outside of schools. Further details are available on request.

Currently all of us involved in delivering these programmes for SYC are doing so as volunteers. Whilst we are delighted to do so, we recognise that the next step in the development of SYC so that it can bring even more benefit to even more young people, families and communities, is to move towards staff who are salaried. To achieve this strategic aim the next step is for us to recruit a post that will both increase the number of communities and individuals we are able to help through training and coaching others, and in itself generate further funds: a Coaching and Training Manager. This post will help us to generate a sustainable income stream through a model of charging for some of our coaching and training, and putting that income back into the charity to support its further development.

The Coaching and Training Manager will focus on generating new clients and establishing robust processes to serve them well. SYCs CEO, Claire Bankole, and her colleagues will deliver the coaching and training sessions. Claire's qualifications include: Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM) Level 7 Executive & Senior Level Coaches and Mentors. You can find out more about her background at: https://syc.life/coach/

SYC aims to raise £15,429 by 31 August 2022 in order ensure we have sufficient funds to employ a Coaching and Training Manager to help the team serve more individuals and communities, at the same time as generating a sustainable source of income to support the charity's youth and community work in Reading on an ongoing basis.

Donations small and large are welcome on JustGiving as we seek to raise £15,429. Your support will make a real difference to the wellbeing of young people and communities in Reading.

Thank you for your support!