The Winch Wins Over Youth Mark Assessors

The Winch youth club in Swiss Cottage, Camden recently received a Bronze Youth Mark award. 

The young people who delivered the assessment found the Winch staff friendly and approachable, and observed that they worked very well together as a team.  They felt staff made the effort to do that little bit extra for the young people.  The young people appreciated the opportunities that attending the Winch gave them:

"[Since attending the Winch] I'm more constructive with my time and I can socialise with other people" Young person at the Winch

The assessment also found that the Winch consults young people to get feedback on specific issues such as the refurbishment of the building and makes changes as a result (e.g. repainting the youth club).  The assessors suggested the Winch should do more to engage female young people in their activities and they are already working towards this by putting on special activities to attract more girls. They also felt the Winch could develop more opportunities for young people to take responsibility for delivering some of their services and recommended their youth board should be re-established to be involved in overall leadership at the Winch.

The Winch is currently working with Youth Mark Assessors who delivered the assessment and Youth Mark staff to develop an action plan to implement some of the changes suggested by the assessment.

Paul Perkins, Director of the Winch said:

"The Winch have benefited from an external, young-person led view of and reflection on the organisation. This fresh and considered perspective has cast a helpful light on our way of working and provided a tool to help us move forward, whilst identifying the things we do well.  The different perspective that Youth Mark brought to us, being otherwise unconnected with the organisation, was extremely helpful and our expectations were justified."