The Drop In (closed)
Introduction
A lot of background work has been undertaken over the years on providing a drop in centre for Kesgrave and surrounding areas. All this work came to fruition in September 05 when we ran a drop in centre pilot project at Kesgrave Youth Club for a year and established the need. We then attracted enough funding to continue until July 07, although in the end for various reasons we closed in April 07.
The main issues with continuing were; obtaining a guaranteed income stream; unpaid volunteers to manage it and to help run meetings; and political support for it. Attracting paid employees to run and oversee the meetings was less of an issue.
Although ultimately we were looking for a self funding dedicate drop in centre and permanent staffing, at the current time there are no plans to re-open the drop in centre although effectively the drop in has been superseded by the Tuesday Drop In.
Further details on the project can be found below and on the Drop In Centre website.
Project Plan
i) Establish the need (completed)
ii) Specification (completed March 04)
iii) Identify temporary location (completed Oct 04)
iv) Run drop in centre pilot project (completed - September 05-06)
v) Continue running provided funding permits (completed Sep 06 - Apr 07).
vi) Identify permanent location
vii) Setup up management committee
viii) Open facility
Establishing the need
The need was established by:
i) a youth survey was carried out at the High School in 2000 that showed a drop in centre near the top of the list.
ii) From feedback from a public consultation event held in Nov 04 to consider setting up a drop in centre
Specification
Points to consider;
The Building:
- Welcoming atmosphere (home from home), with modern look, preferably new or refurbished, decorated by youngsters.
- Different areas including confidential room, outside area (for football, basketball etc), lounge area with sofa’s, art and craft area, music area, kitchen.
Activities/Facilities/Opening Times:
- General drop in where young people can do things, cafe, tuck shop, pool table, tv, radio, themed evenings
- Counseling, info on health, leisure and social issues, art and craft, music workshops
- open weekday evenings, Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon
Location:
- Fairly central to Kesgrave, away from housing
People:
- For 13 to 19 year olds, paid young adults to run it plus volunteers, Adults who blend in.
Funding:
- Apply for council grants, lottery etc
- Register with Make Space campaign which encourages the setting up of drop in centres/after school clubs for 11-16 year olds.
Site Visits:
- Visit other local facilities, notably, Rochford House in Woodbridge and CYDS project in Leiston to see what facilities they have and how they are funded.
Locations
Numerous locations have been considered by the drop in centre working party. Listed below are the main ones and reasons for their exclusion if applicable.
- Part of new Library (flats above could be used but thought too expensive to purchase/let).
- Houses near Park and Ride (owned by Suffolk County Council and already allocated to other users).
- Library Porta cabin when vacated (small, Tesco’s may build on area, and building already old and hence limited life).
- Old Scout Hall (offered to Youth Club and other organisations but no takers. Mainly down to finding budget. Hall now sold to business user).
- House on Grange Farm (thought too expensive to purchase and residential area concerns)
- Hire local venues (not ideal from youth ownership point of view, accommodation is very scarce, difficult to co-ordinate).
- Bus (small, cost of purchasing and running, however not completely discounted at this stage)
- Kesgrave Youth Club (not ideal from youth ownership point of view plus considered going back to school by youngsters. However this is the only practical solution in the short term and will be used for the trial drop in centre.)
- Kesgrave Community Centre (not ideal from youth ownership point of view, they have few evening time slots, conflicting use of building. However they do have land so not completely excluded if we went down the new building route).
- Tesco Shop Unit (not ideal from youth ownership point of view, expensive commercial lease. However if one became free not an impossibility).
- New Building (This is the ideal solution ie to get a purpose build facility in a suitable location but finding funds to build such a facility and finding a location would be challenging. However a similar scale project has been completed by the 1st Kesgrave Scout Group so it can be done. Before pushing this option forward we intend to run a drop in centre pilot project for a year at the youth club to ascertain the need and whether we can run it, before launching in to a significant fund raising activity).
In conclusion, the only practical way forward would appear to be to use the Youth Club initially and then consider moving into alternative accommodation if something suitable became available (eg Tesco Unit etc) and look to build our own facility eventually.
Drop In Centre Pilot Project
Before embarking on an expensive and possibly long timescale project of building a drop in centre or renting suitable premises it was decided that a drop in centre pilot project should be run. This will firstly gauge the demand for the facility and secondly establish our ability to run such a facility. We have obtained a grants of almost £13,000 from the Local Network Fund and other sources to run this project for a year
The timetable for the project was as follows:
- Mar 05 - prepare job description and person specs for project leader (completed)
- Apr 05 - discuss proposal to employ project leader at YF meeting (completed)
- Jun 05 - if proposal approved, advertise project leader post (completed)
- Jun 05 - Advertise for other youth workers (completed).
- Jul 05 - interview and appoint project leader (completed).
- Jul 05 - interview and appoint youth workers (completed)
- Jul/Aug 05 - Project leader and team can start working with young people to plan the programme, market the drop in centre, get involved in Summer activities etc (completed).
- Sep 05 - opening night 20 Sept (completed)
Identify Permanent Location
Whilst running the project, the drop in centre working group continued to pursue options for a more permanent venue and funding for subsequent years. If the project gets resurrected we’ll keep you informed of progress through these web pages.
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