Youth charity's CEO talks success

Although SYA is 36 years old, until nine years ago it was run and fully funded by Shropshire Council, but it fell victim to austerity when youth services were axed across the UK.

In the nine years since, SYA has grown from having no funds to an annual turnover of half a million pounds.

Richard Parkes, the charity’s Chief Executive Officer, is the man who has ensured th last nine years have been hugely successful for the charity, despite the challenges of the Covid pandemic and a cost of living crisis that is bringing a whole new set of challenges.

Richard’s involvement with youth organisations and charity work began when he joined the scouts as a child.

He says:“I started doing some volunteering for youth clubs as well as keeping up with the scouting and from there gained some part-time qualifications in youth work,” he said.

“I decided that it was the career for me so I sold my house and went back to college as a mature student to get my professional qualifications.

“I’m still actively involved in scouting as a member of the county executive team for The Scout Association in Shropshire. I do a lot of the mountaineering qualifications for scouts, take groups out and about in the hills and am a Gold Assessor for the Duke of Edinburgh Awards. Scouting and Girl Guiding are an important part of the jigsaw that makes up youth provision in Shropshire for children and young people.”

Previously Richard was the Principal Youth Officer for Shropshire Council.

“SYA was cut free from council support and had to stand on its own two feet," he remembers. "That meant having to find new premises to work from, recruiting an entire team of staff and finding a new chief officer - which was the job I got,” he added.

“We needed to get in contracts, put staff in place and when the charity was set up it was obvious that we couldn’t just carry on along the lines of what it had done previously, which was purely to support voluntary youth clubs - because there wasn’t a sufficient income stream to do that.

“So we have changed, we have developed a very different offer through a number of income streams and we’ve gone from strength-to-strength. Youth clubs are still at the heart of what we do. We run youth clubs that are fully staffed by our team. We have a budget for that, they tend to be funded by town and parish councils.

“We offer a hybrid approach which we call our Partnership Agreement. We provide a qualified and experienced youth worker to operate alongside volunteers in the community to run the youth club. During that time we train those volunteers with a view to them getting to a position where it can become a voluntary youth club supported minimally by us. I have to say that most continue employing us as they find it a better model than running the club purely with volunteers.”

Mr Parkes said SYA has developed other work strands around Alternative Curriculum with the charity supporting young people who are on Educational Health Care Plans and have been multiple-excluded from schools. SYA also offers youth work intervention rather than a teaching intervention which is a more suitable solution for these young people in many cases.

“Before and as a result of Covid the mental health of young people has become a massive concern,” says Richard. “We have expanded a Young Health Champions project which had been designed by young people at Bishop’s Castle Community College as one of our projects around mental health, and we are now delivering that mental health intervention into a number of secondary schools across Shropshire - a mental health drop-in which we are calling Time 2 Talk.

“We provide an extensive training offer to keep the sector trained and engaged. This includes JNC recognised youth work qualifications, safeguarding, DBS checks, proper employment checks, first aid and, if involved in food, we offer food hygiene training as a basic.

“It means the voluntary and paid youth sectors in Shropshire Telford & Wrekin are incredibly well placed in terms of qualifications to look after our children and young people. We have a much stronger qualified offer in the county than almost all of the other areas.”

Richard is expanding the team at SYA with a new fundraising officer and an office manager recently joining the team. He said the structure of the organisation is important for the success of the charity as they need so many different skill sets within the charity.

“The universal youth club where young people just turn up is still our bread and butter and the fact that our clubs are busy, with some having to operate a waiting list, shows just how relevant the youth club remains today,” he adds.

“Activities which can be enjoyed at warm, safe, identifiable places in our communities where young people can meet, socialise and be supervised by a qualified adult.”

Mr Parkes said SYA weathered the pandemic reasonably well and despite about half of youth clubs failing to reopen post-Covid, a reflection of the national picture, Shropshire was now back to around pre-pandemic levels.

“During Covid we ran 47 virtual youth clubs a week with our voluntary club partners and were one of the first two organisations in the UK to move over to that platform,” Richard says. “Within the group of more than 1,000 charities that make up UKYouth, we took the lead and shared what we were doing with virtual youth clubs so others could do the same.

“The cost of living crisis has now hit and we are seeing expectations of young people being lowered. We are providing more food to young people and more food for them to take home. We are seeing family purse strings being tightened around holidays, birthdays and Christmas - all of which is having a negative impact on young people but is unavoidable.

“It’s affecting their mental health and they are expressing concerns to us about where the money is coming from to pay bills at home. It’s something that is quite new to us but is a sad reflection of the times we are living in.

“As for the future of SYA, things are looking rosy. We are in a strong position, we are building a new £1.5million HQ, the voluntary sector is picking up and our income is growing year-on-year to the point where we are now turning over about half a million pounds a year - we have come a long way in the nine years since we started at zero.”

Richard and his team know they have challenges ahead.

“We are always looking for more volunteers, fundraisers, people who can offer their services on the management committee, work with scouts, guides, young farmers, help with the running of clubs or be willing to work behind the scenes - anyone who wants to contribute something and help improve the lives of children and young people here in Shropshire.

“Alternatively, we would love to hear from anyone who has a skill to share and would be prepared to come into a club once a month, once a year or on a one-off basis. It could be about how to change the wheel on a car, gloss paint a door, ice a cake or whatever.

“I would like to create a database of people willing to share their talent with young people. A couple of years ago we had an elderly lady who went into a youth club in Ludlow and taught the young people to knit. The entire club took part. She taught them how to make an oblong, sew buttons, bells and ribbons into it, making something called Twiddle mitts which Help The Aged are interested in providing for the elderly.

“We would also welcome opportunities for tours around factories, farms and other places of interest or showing young people how a product is made. Getting involved with our young people is hugely rewarding and it’s a chance for adults to contribute to the future wellbeing of our society.”

For more information on SYA visit https://sya.org.uk/ and if anyone would like to fundraise or volunteer for the charity or offer their services as a guest speaker or as part of their CSR programme please email Richard@sya.org.uk