The past two years have seen major cuts to youth provision in High Wycombe, over the last two years we have lost 4 of our main providers and the Youth Services have had to cut back on a lot of their direct delivery in High Wycombe. This has left WYA as the main youth provision provider in High Wycombe and in fact the only universal youth provision provider.

We have over 150 young men and women engaged in our projects who are from either BME or low socio econimcal backgrounds. Many are engaged with anti social behaviour and we are the partner of choice for the Police and Council officers when trying to engage young people.

In addition we are currently delivering Prevent and Child Sexual exploitation programs, and believe that our ethos of respect and empathy towards all young people is why our partners select us to deliver this work.

We are widely accepted as an organisation with a history of engaging the most disengaged young people in High Wycombe. Our partners consist of the Thames Valley Police, Youth Offending Service, Social Services and referrers including Schools and the Youth Services. As local industry leaders we are now also partnering with Wycombe District Council to deliver the local Youth Council across schools in the district.

Our staff knowledge and expertise spans from gangs work, mentoring and youth engagement to employability and mindset skills.

Irrespective of all the work we do WYA receives no Core Funding from Local Authorities or Organisations, this means that we are only funded for projects, leaving our Town Centre Youth Club at risk of closure. The youth club which runs on a Wednesday evening currently receives no funding, and delivers youth provisions to over 100 registered young people. Any week we can see numbers from 4 to 40 and young people benefit from music workshops, the opportunity to contribute to BlinkFM our online channel, and have their voices heard on our social media platforms. This is currently the ONLY town centre youth club open to all young people, with experienced staff will to engage with ALL young people.