BFree Youth Café and Leatherhead Youth Work

BFree Youth Cafe

BFree is our relational hub, open every day after school for local young people aged 11-17. The aim of BFree is to provide a safe, positive space for young people to meet friends, enjoy activities & games, and get to know our youth workers. BFree allows our team to build positive relationships with local young people, and by doing so we can understand their needs and support them in other areas of their lives. Our team can help with referrals to counselling, careers advice and support with learning specific skills.

BFree is open Monday – Friday from 3:15 until 6:15pm during term time. Our state of the art space is equipped with a pool table, table tennis, table football and games consoles.

If you are interested in volunteering with us at BFree, please get in touch.

FreeStyle Residential Camp

Freestyle is an annual residential trip which provides local young people with an action packed time away from home during the Easter holidays.

The young people work together in teams, play sports, learn new skills through workshops and listen to an inspirational talk each evening.

Freestyle is one of our most popular projects, leaving young people inspired, more confident and full of fantastic memories. For many Freestyle is their only time away from home all year.

Connect

Connect is a targeted support group which runs fortnightly for young people aged 11 to 17.

It provides a safe space to be able to develop lasting friendships and expresses themselves freely. It’s aim is to build the young people’s confidence and self-esteem to help them in their school, home and future lives.

At Connect young people discuss topics relevant to them, eat dinner together, play games and take part in different activities.

Explore

Explore is a fortnightly group that welcomes young people from all backgrounds to discuss Christian faith based topics.

The sessions tend to start with eating dinner together and then are followed by exploring a different theme each week.

Explore helps young people to reflect on their values and beliefs whilst building community with their peers.

BFree+

BFree+ is a dedicated evening session for older young people. The drop-in youth cafe is an extension of our relational hub, BFree and provides a safe space for Years 10 – 13 to spend time with their friends and get to know our youth workers better.

Since coming out of the pandemic, we have seen a tendency for young people in Years 10 – 13 to engage less with BFree and our other projects. We’ve launched BFree+ to provide a space purely for older young people. By reconnecting with this age group, our youth workers can provide continual support for young people from Years 7 – 13 and beyond.

BFree+ is open for Years 10 – 13 on a Thursday evening during term time from 6:15 – 8pm. Alongside enjoying dinner together, older young people can enjoy all the usual BFree activities and games including the latest consoles, a pool table and table football.

Making Good

Making Good offers young people the chance to give back to their community by taking part in social action volunteering activities during half term.

This usually involves projects such as conservation work, litter picks, painting or clearing community areas.

On the third day of the project, young people enjoy a trip as a team building reward and past trips have included trampolining at Gravity Force, going to Paultons Park and bowling.

“It’s fantastic to see young people spending their school holidays engaging positively with the local community. Making Good is a wonderful opportunity for so many of them to learn new skills and to leave feeling empowered. It’s also a great reminder to the local community of the positive contribution local young people can make when they are given the right opportunities” – Youth Worker

Schools Work

LYP is proud to partner with local primary and secondary schools.

Group Work
We run regular blocks of group work, in response to difficulties that arise with particular year groups and specific issues. We have run sessions with year 8 girls focused on self-esteem, sessions with year 9 boys focused on school engagement, and sessions with year 9 girls focused on behaviour and building confidence.

Transition
We run an annual Transition scheme, helping year 6 students prepare for the upcoming transition to secondary education. We focus on looking at their hopes and fears, aspects of the school day including timetables, and where to go for help and support.

Trinity Lunch Club
Our youth work team run a lunch club at Trinity School each week as part of their transition support for Year 6 students.

This is a great opportunity for the team and young people to get to know each other before they start accessing LYP projects when they start Year 7.

Key Work

Key Work is an additional support project for young people aged 11-17, who have been identified through community youth work, requiring extra one to one support from a youth worker. Key Work provides the space for a young person to talk things through with a youth worker on a regular basis, and allows the youth worker to monitor the young person’s wellbeing and current life situations, being the main contact for further referrals.

Into The Wild

Our Into the Wild project gives young people the opportunity to experience the outdoors and discover the positive impact spending time in nature can have on their mental health.

Into the Wild includes an orienteering training day, a mountain trek in Wales, a self-led expedition in the Surrey Hills and wild camping in hammocks.

Throughout this project the young people keep journals to reflect on their thoughts and feelings from taking part in this experience.

By completing Into the Wild, the young people also receive the John Muir Discovery Award.

Summer

Each summer we run a schedule of activities and trips. This gives young people lots to get involved with over the long summer and keeps them with involved with positive activities.

Our summer activities include BBQ’s, a trip to Brighton and lunch at Nando’s.

Faith Work

LYP is a Christian faith based organisation. As such we support young people with their faith journeys through a variety of our projects. We partner with Churches and other faith organisations to provide this support.

Central to our vision is…

• To be a team who live out our Christian values and ethos with love, authenticity and integrity in relationship with others, particularly young people.
• To provide projects that enable all young people to develop their whole lives, including their spiritual lives, and experience a journey on our youth work continuum towards transformation.
• That all our projects are shaped and designed to meet the needs of young people and give them the best outcomes possible.

Christian Unions – LYP supports Christian unions in some of the schools we work in.

Faith groups – We run groups for young people who would like to explore the Christian faith and develop their faith journey.

Next Level – Run in partnership with the local churches in Bookham this is our monthly youth led Christian worship night, on the third Friday of every month.

Aspire

Aspire is about helping young people plan for their future and find the education or employment they are looking for.

Many young people in our community finish education with low or no qualifications, resulting in a number of young people becoming NEET in our area. Our aim is to come alongside young people to raise their confidence and aspirations and help them to fulfil their potential.

We run weekly group and one-to-one sessions with 16 – 24 year olds to help them gain qualifications, access further education and find employment opportunities.