City YMCA

General information

Our holistic approach covers young people age 12 to 25 where 25% have left care and 15% run-away from home. The rest are either deemed at-risk from their parents, are trying to divert from crime or have fallen upon hard times.

We’ve been working with at-risk young people for the last forty years and it’s something that we believe we are quite successful at.

In EC1/EC2 we are:
• Lead provider of accommodation for vulnerable 16 to 25 year olds
• Lead provider of targeted detached and outreach based work to at risk young people
• Chair of the Finsbury Ward Youth Partnership
• Member of the Finsbury Ward Partnership
• Active in the Islington Children and Young People Voluntary Sector Forum
• Deliver services on behalf of Islington Council
• Work with the Metropolitan Police across London
• Member of the Community Safety Partnership
• Lead provider for young people on the Empty Homes Plan for Islington, Tower Hamlets and Hackney
• Cited in ‘After the Riots’ for best practice in youth engagement

At risk young people are among the most desensitised individuals around today. While they demonstrate characteristics common to most adolescent teenagers, they have a complete lack of understanding of the hurt they place on others. While at risk young people are fully in control of their actions, and they remain acutely aware of right and wrong, they fail to register any feelings of the consequence of those actions on others. Sometimes to disastrous consequences.

Our young people are forced to leave home due to family conflicts, violence, physical or sexual abuse and cultural expectations. This intensifies problems with drugs and alcohol, issues at school and bullying.

The issue of homelessness among young people isn’t new. There continues to be no accurate statistics to measure the extent of youth homelessness. The mobile nature of homeless young people then exasperates this. The problem is not that there is no work – in Islington there are roughly 1.4 jobs for every person of working age. The problem is that many young people are trapped outside employment, lacking work experience and the confidence required to land a job.

At 56%, Islington has the highest proportion of 19 year olds in London lacking a Level 3 qualification .

As a provider of hostel accommodation, we have unique experience in housing and supporting these young people – helping them to get back on track in society. At City YMCA the demand for hostel places continues unabated. Some 5,000 people under the age of 25 have passed through our care over the last thirty years and our rooms have run consistently at 97% occupancy levels, a stark demonstration of the on-going need for hostel provision.

Yet City YMCA is not paid to provide emotional support to at risk young people. No government programme funds our efforts to turn their lives around. Rather as a charity we’re compelled to offer parenting support that the young people in our care urgently need.

Our role as parent to these young homeless lives is crucial. We are here to bring these young people, from the age of just 16, back from the brink of a cycle of deprivation and hurt.

It's somthing that we can only do with your help. As a registered charity we rely on the generous support of our friends and supporters to make our response possible. Every penny you give helps support an at-risk young people.

Please give what you can today at www.cityymca.org

Thank you.