Empowering Youth Through Community Activities

Our Story

In 2022 the Gleadless valley tara was approached by the Sheffield city council to see if their was anyone local to the area that provides children’s entertainment or activities and clubs? The Gleadless valley tara put forward there children’s entertainer (Flava fun parties) which they use for their children’s parties and recommended they use her services.

With in a few weeks Emma who owns Flava fun parties was linking up with the Sheffield city council to provide holiday club activities in the area for children of school age, and that are eligible for free school meals. Emma was always looking for further ways to bring more provisions to the area, this was proving hard with no funding to be able to provide the provisions on a weekly basis, and also the spaces and areas that are available.

In August 2024 Emma was approached by a group of people from Sheffield play partnership, to see if they could help build better provisions for the children of the area, and support Emma to build better provisions, help Emma achieve her goals for the families of the area, and bring a brighter future to Gleadless valley for the children.

In September 2024 Emma set up Valley youth hub cic, which is a community interest company. Now Emma can work with different partnerships, work with different organisations and apply for funding to bring provisions and activities to the area. These provisions are for all children of the area, providing all children with activities and a safe environment to be them self's. The current staff of Valley youth hub are also attending play workers courses to better their knowledge to bring a different approach to children’s play and hopefully a better understanding of children’s play.

Valley youth hub may be a new company to the area but in previous years they have been in the valley a long time. Emma has lived on the valley for 42 years and raised her child on the valley, so she has seen the demise over the years of provisions for children. After being given the chance to try and bring hope to the area, I have jumped at the opportunity, and will be pushing for every chance we can get for the children.

Due to the estate not having many communal areas that can be used for the children, we are having to think outside of the box to bring children provisions to the estate, so between November 2024 and March 2025 Valley youth hub will be providing pop up play areas in 3 areas of the estate, dates are advertised on the valley youth hub Facebook page (as our website is still under construction and will be launched in the near future). And big plans for valley youth hub are in talks with different organizations and the council to look at bringing a structured area for just the children on the estate that the children can call their own. Keep your eyes peeled on our Facebook page and also when the website is launched for more information of the bigger picture for Valley youth hub

In the background Valley youth hub are working tirelessly to fight to bring as much provisions to the area for the children.

Inspiring and engaging local children to bring a brighter future

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Statement of purpose

Valley youth hub is a community interest company based in the Gleadless valley estate in Sheffield. It provides a range of different services , mostly to residents within the surrounding local community, which is one of the most needing wards of Sheffield.

The services include pop up play sessions for children of all ages, holiday clubs for the children aged 4 to 18 years old.

Valley youth hub aims to provide a rich play environment which is easily accessible to local children, young people and families during much of their out of school lives, where they feel able to have fun playing, whilst also developing their, physical, social, emotional and intellectual skills and capabilities, and exploring a range of responses to different experiences encountered in or externally and during play.

“ The rights to play is a child’s first claim on the community. Play is nature’s training for life! No community can infringe that right without doing deep and enduring harm to the bodies and minds of it’s children”

Sheffield city council is now recognising that children’s freedom of play, is a crucial part of healthy development.

Play is critical to children’s physical and emotional well-being and is central to a healthy child’s life. It’s impacts on the development of both their bodies and their brains. When given the opportunity to play, children are more likely to be physically active by running, jumping, dancing, climbing, digging, lifting, pushing and pulling. Through play, children can experience a wide range of emotions including frustration, determination, achievement, disappointment, confidence and upset, and through practice they can learn how to manage these. By playing with their peers children can also develop their social skills and build strong friendships, which lead to positive feelings of happiness and belonging.

Principle policy statement

There is intrinsic value in children experiencing uncertainty and personal challenge through their play.

We recognise that children are capable of managing some risk for themselves and that their competency will develop as their experience grows.

Children need to feel free to experience risk or their own volition and they will only be able to do this if adults allow some degree of uncertainty to remain.

There is a need to strike a balance between ensuring appropriate levels of protection and preserving reasonable level’s of risk.

We aim to manage risk so that whenever reasonably possible the risk of harm children are exposed to is proportional to the potential benefits associated with the situation.

Any potential control measures must be justified by being proportional to the risk involved and consideration should be given to any negative impacts that could arise from implementing these controls.

Our risk management system incorporates a number of different elements which work together, enabling us to continuously improve our practice.

We have two simple rules to allow the safety of play with in the valley youth hub settings, which all children and adults attending the valley youth hub must be aware of

1. To respect the children, staff and other adults within the setting.

2. Not to do anything that will cause harm or hurt anybody else within the valley youth hub setting.

Behaviour that is considered to ‘cross’ these boundaries is immediately challenged in a clam manner and given time for discussion. Continued negative behaviour may result in a ‘time out’ and sustained. Extreme or dangerous actions may result in time limited ‘ban’. Should this be the case, parents are informed of the circumstances and reasons for the sanction. It is important to note that a ban is considered as a final resort and only after all the other sanctions have been tried.

This statement of purpose will be reviewed annually or when any changes in our provisions occurs. Copies of our principle statements can be found on our social media page http://facebook.com/valleyyouthhub