People Culture Skills
Canvey Island Youth Project
Retention and progression for Canvey Island Youth charity staff was the key reason for needing support from the Active Essex Organisational Development programme.
Canvey Island Youth Project (CYP) formed in 1992, supports young people through school workshops, health and wellbeing provisions, counselling, mentoring and activity clubs.
The team consists of counsellors, youth workers and volunteers that support with outreach and delivering sessions, but with an often-young cohort of staff members, it was important to ensure progression was stipulated in order to retain staff going forward.
The diagnostic report provided validation for a lot of the work they’re currently doing, and highlighted two things to work on:
- How CYP recruit and retain staff
- How CYP catures data going forward
The charity has been working alongside Active Essex since 2017 with the Holiday Activity and Food programme, apprenticeship roles, and now the People Culture Skills strategy.
As part of the latter, CYP underwent diagnostic testing to understand their areas of strength and areas of development, along with the opportunity to gain further support through a network of others on a similar journey.
Key learnings
As part of the People Culture Skills support, Canvey Island Youth Project established some key learnings for Active Essex to think about.
Business as usual
Day-to-Day running and long-term planning is hard to do together
Future funding
Applications take all focus, so accessing continuous support can be tricky
Delivery vs planning
Participants’ needs are a priority, future planning can take a back seat
As the People Culture Skills support progresses, Active Essex are hopeful that the Canvey Island Youth Project will sustain the relationships they have built alongside the other organisations in their workshops and will continue to reflect, develop their foundations and put youth voice at the centre of many of their decisions.Lee Monk, Active Essex Relationship Manager
