Case Studies

The Yard is a work-based training project that takes on young adults who find it difficult to sustain or engage with education, employment or training. The project helps 16-24 year-olds by working with them on a range of practical skills that will hopefully lead them on to finding rewarding and stable employment. The Yard offers training in a range of areas including general building, bricklaying, plastering, plumbing, bicycle refurbishment and repairs as well as gardening and community work. The Yard works with a core group of young adults for up to a year, and continues to support former Yard trainees through regular contact, meetings and events. What is particularly unique about the project is that in addition to being a training centre, they are also able to offer a professional building service and will soon be able to offer a house insulation service. This is hugely beneficial to the young adults as the training they receive is in a real work setting, and demonstrates first- hand the skills needed to work in and run a professional business.

Underpinning the practical side of The Yard is a dedicated, mentoring support service. The Yard works with young adults who have often experienced feelings of failure, have had negative experiences at school and may have had disrupted home lives. As much as the project is about learning new skills, The Yard is also about building confidence and self-esteem.

The Yard also offers a monthly ‘transition group’ for young adults who have moved on from the project. The group gives these former Yard trainees the opportunity to come back and talk about how they are doing, what they are doing, and where needed, get help and support from project staff. The transition group also acts as a peer mentoring service, as the former trainees can share their experiences and successes with young adults who are currently training with The Yard.

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The Yard Project was initially set up by Peter Grubb and Clare Meade in collaboration with other youth work colleagues, influenced by the realisation that too many vulnerable young adults were being directed in to employment, education or training that they were unable to sustain. Drawing on experience gained from a background working with young people in care, the initial founders developed a project that would build holistic support in with practical training, and thus give vulnerable and disengaged young adults the best possible chance of succeeding in life.

The project itself is based in a former builder’s yard, situated in the heart of a residential community. The building site was originally purchased in 2004 by the project founders, and preliminary work began in late 2005.
Over a three-year period, young adults, supported by skilled project staff, transformed the derelict building to create their own training and community centre. The building is now owned by The Yard Project (Community Interest Company).

“I’ve been working with care-leavers for a while. My job was to direct them into employment or training, and actually a lot of the time I was setting them up to fail. I could get them in to college or find an employer that would take them on but after a couple of weeks, those young people had not succeeded in either. And I thought, there’s got to be a different way. So we thought let’s do something positive about this. Let’s actually go and work alongside young people. Let’s get their routine going. Let’s start to work on some of their barriers to employment and training, and also look at the things that actually keep them engaged.” (The Yard Project, founder)

The Yard is very much a community project, and community partnership is at the heart of the service. The community has helped keep the project going through a variety of ways, including having a range of locals and professionals come in and share their knowledge and experience with the young people, and also having car boot sales at The Yard to raise funds for the project. The Yard also has close links with local employers.

A particularly successful link has been with independent property maintenance company, Ace Group of Companies (www.ace- managementgroup.com). Through the collaborative support of The Yard, the company won a large, local building contract and as part of the joint agreement now hopes to take on two of The Yard’s former young adult trainees.

Funding for The Yard was initially provided through Suffolk County Council and a small private donation. Since then the project has received a patchwork of funds from a variety of sources including Suffolk County Council, Lowestoft Together (Safer and Stronger Communities), Barclays, UnLimited, Fair Share Lottery, the Suffolk Foundation and some small donations. However, as The Yard operates as a community interest company, the project is partly self-sufficient due to income generated from providing skilled building, gardening services and bicycle refurbishment and repairs.

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The Yard has 10-15 new young adult trainees every year, though they also provide ongoing support to a large number of young adults who have since left the project. The Yard also offers motivational courses for other young people at risk of becoming NEET (not in education, employment or training).

Referrals mainly now come through Connexions, hostels, Social Services, and the Youth Offending Team. Occasionally young people will refer themselves to the service.

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he Yard is primarily a work-based training project for young adults, but it is also a place where they can go and learn about the skills needed to become independent and successful adults. Some of the ways in which The Yard works innovatively with young people are as follows:

Providing guidance and encouraging responsibility:

Though project staff are clear that they are not there to support the young adults in a parental role, they do provide structure and guidance for them. The Yard puts trainees in a real-work situation but there is a ‘soft’ edge to that relationship, which recognises that in many cases these young adults still need to gain the basics of responsibility. Project staff won’t chase the young trainees if they are late or don’t turn up, but will guide them if they encounter difficulties or challenges. The Yard experience is about cultivating responsibility, self-drive and motivation. The work-based environment encourages an adult attitude.

“When we talk about that transition [to adulthood] for me, one of the biggest steps is when young people start to take responsibility for themselves. And that’s what we aim to do... If something happens like, for any reason they break a boundary, for example, we had a couple of young guys who were about to have a fight on a job. If you were an employer you would say that is unacceptable, I can’t have you on the job. What we did was sit them down individually and then together to talk about what the implications of that were, if they weren’t able to deal with that in the future that would affect their whole prospects of either getting or job or taking on further training. It’s not to tell them off, it’s because we want them to sort it out for theirfuture.” (The Yard Project, Founder)

Providing strong role models: Project staff also act as positive role models for the young adults, by demonstrating appropriate ways to communicate and behave in a real work situation.

“If you say you’re going to do something, as an adult then you need to be able to carry that out. Unless there’s really extenuating circumstances. And hopefully they’ll join you in seeing it’s important to do that.” (The Yard Project, Founder)

Recognising barriers to engagement:

The Yard recognises that young adults are not always ready to engage with a new project, particularly when they may have had very negative experiences of education and training in the past. The project gives them the flexibility to make those decisions, and return back to the project if it did not work out the first time.

“When we find it isn’t working with a young person, we say well maybe that person isn’t yet ready. They need to know that they can say, ‘well no perhaps that isn’t what I want’, or maybe kind of kick against it. It’s having a place where you can come back toifyouneedto.” (The Yard Project, Founder)

Providing ongoing support – the ‘open door’ policy:

The Yard Project offers young adults a place where they can touch base whenever they need to. Project staff will help in whatever ways they can, be it a work-based problem or a personal problem. Project staff also support young adults who have left the project. This may be in providing a forum for them to show what they have achieved since leaving The Yard, or helping support them with other issues in their lives.

“It’s in that process of dependence to independence. You do need that open door.” (The Yard Project, Founder)

Building confidence and self-esteem:

The young adults who work with the Yard often have very low self-esteem. They feel labelled as failures and carry that around with them in everything they do. Project staff are very aware of this, and therefore make significant effort to find and build on something the young adults can do well. This might be building a wall, laying some concrete or simply lasting a full day without losing their temper. Rewarding and highlighting successes is considered a big part of helping the young adults make their first steps towards positive change.

“He’s always there for you. And he always says nothing is impossible, which is a good thing. Even if you get something wrong, he always says everyone learns from mistakes. And then he tells you how to correct it, whereas other people just tell you to get back on with it and do it again without helping.” (Will, 21)

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In the project’s first year, two young adults went on to start their own gardening businesses and the others went on into employment or training. Since then, there has been a steady stream of young adults leaving The Yard and going on into education, training and employment. Two former Yard trainees have also succeeded in gaining youth work qualifications.

The young adults leaving The Yard have also shown how they have significantly built up their resilience since starting at the project, and have since found positive ways to move forward with their lives.

The Yard Project is keen to develop further links with local colleges to enable more young people to work towards professional qualifications.

They are also establishing an insulation project, training and providing loft and cavity wall insulation as well as further developing the links with Ace Group to provide young adults with experience in construction work. These are part of the project’s plans for greater sustainability whilst providing young adults with industry-based qualifications and experience which can lead to employment. The project continues to involve the local community through a range of activities and volunteering opportunities.

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