Torfaen’s Youth Service provides a range of opportunities for young people aged 11-25 in their local community youth clubs, out on the streets with our detached team, within local schools and through our exciting youth activities and projects.
The service offers evening and weekend activities for young people to engage in and a summer and school holiday programme with lots of fun and challenging things to do.
If you’d like to get involved in youth work as a volunteer or as a student on placement then please get in touch as we offer a full training programme and supervision for all our volunteers and we can support you through NVQs level 2 and 3 as well as those on the degree route.
The Youth Service is shaped by young people identifying what’s needed and by being part of the decision making process. If you want to be involved through the Youth Forum and our Planning Pods please get in touch using the details below.
Five key pillars of youth work
Youth work has a value base which is grounded in respect for young people, inclusion and equal opportunity. The key principles that underpin the delivery of youth work are captured in The Five Pillars of Youth Work in Wales - educative, expressive, empowering, inclusive and participative
Youth workers build relationships with young people in a range of settings; in youth clubs, in parks and outdoor spaces, in schools and colleges, essentially wherever young people are and when they want to engage.
Working alongside young people, youth workers create safe spaces that are designed and built in response to their needs. They collaboratively provide and create opportunities to assist young people on their journey into adulthood and independence through the Five Pillars.
The Five Pillars of Youth Work in Wales are:
- Educative is all about learning in a way that suits you, where it suits you and when it suits you!
- Expressive is finding out that we all have different talents, strengths and qualities and its great fun finding out what these are.
- Empowering is about building on our strengths, trying new things and being confident in ourselves.
- Inclusive is doing what we can to ensure pathways are open and barriers brought down so we can get involved
- Participative - with confidence, knowledge and support we can make a contribution to matters that affect us and our community.
For more information regarding the principles and purposes of youth work (opens in new tab) click here.
Youth Service concerns and complaints
If you have a concern about something you have experienced with the youth service, then please let us know. We want to do our best to ensure that young people have an excellent experience that is safe and engaging, so your comments may help us improve. We appreciate that misunderstandings can cause upset, so we want to do our best to address these. We recognise, and hope you do also, that we won’t always be able to change things, but we will let you know why. Where we can change and improve, we will do our very best to do so and let you know how your input has helped.
How to get in touch
In the first instance please speak to the youth worker who is running the provision or activity with your concern.
We will
- Listen to you and understand your concerns
- Speak to you in a professional and courteous manner
- Respond to anything we can to help address these concerns
- Where we cannot, we will let you know who in the organisation we are going to speak to and feedback to you as soon as possible.
We would appreciate it if you
- Spoke to us in a courteous manner and at a time when we are not supporting young people
- Clearly express your concerns and what you would like done about it
- Give us up to date contact details should we need to get back to you
Escalating your concern
If after following the above, you would still like to raise your concern further then please contact the service manager David Williams on 07980682276 / david.williams@torfaen.gov.uk and we will endeavour to discuss the matter in the same way as outlined above.
Escalating the concern further
If you still wish to escalate your concern having spoken to the service manager, then you can report your concerns or complaints (opens in new tab) here.