Members with Additional Needs

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Our Ethos

At Wigan Youth Zone we believe that #everyyoungpersoncan. That’s why our inclusion team are dedicated to providing support for all young people at the Youth Zone. The team make sure that each and every young person who attends the youth zone can get involved in the activities they want to, regardless of their abilities.

Our Vision

To encourage and develop an environment so that we Inspire, Invest and Include young people in all the activities and opportunities we have available. We understand that some young people will have more specific needs to enable them to be able to access the same opportunities as others.

Opportunities

We run specific sessions each week including:

Baking once a week
Inclusive football in partnership with Wigan Athletic Community Trust
Closed karaoke sessions to build confidence
Sensory activities

Our Approach

Wigan Youth Zone have developed a model of working that takes into consideration any barriers that may prevent young people from joining in with activities and working to remove those barriers wherever possible. We believe this approach should be inclusive of all abilities yet specific enough to cater for each individual.

Our work consists of:

Providing an accessible location that takes into account transport links.
Providing equipment and facilities (such as lifts, hygiene suite etc).
Carrying out a structured induction for anyone who indicates they may have additional needs or support requirements.
Finding out what those support needs are and how we can best manage them within our setting and making support information available to all staff.
Providing accessible leisure opportunities – such as Boccia, Kurling and Football.
Providing staff on specific nights to support young people through discussion, relationship building, structured activities and encouraging personal development skills.
Training staff in relevant areas towards how they can adapt activities to take ability into account.

Levels Of Support

If young people require additional support to access our opportunities a discussion will take place as to how this can be arranged.

WYZ is not able to offer 1:1 support, but we make provision for this by allowing that young person to be supported by a personal assistant or carer within the Youth Zone, and make sure those supporting a young person to attend the Youth Zone has signed our PA agreement. We ask that they provide a current full DBS to enable them to do this and they follow the guidelines we have set in place for those adults who are supporting young people on premises.