Additional Activities
Funding permitted we also provide additional opportunities for club members to attend day trips and weekend residentials coupled with respite activities during the school holidays.
These include…
- Annual Young Carers Festival at YMCA Fairthorne Manor in Southampton, Hampshire.
- Swimming sessions at Hart Leisure Centre
- Theatre trips including a trip to a Christmas pantomime
- Arts & Craft sessions
- Music workshops
- Trips to theme parks i.e. Thorpe Park
- Water sport activities including paddle boarding
Additionally we also offer two bespoke activity programmes:
Cook & Eat
Our Cook & Eat programme runs alongside our weekly young carers clubs and provides an opportunity for a small group of up to four young carers to attend a 1-1.5-hour cooking session before club, during which they help prepare food for their whole group of around 25-30 young carers.
The sessions help the young carers to learn and develop basic cooking skills with easy-to-follow recipes, whilst also socialising with other young carers of similar age. The focus is on having fun as well as helping increase the young carer’s knowledge of food and nutrition, food hygiene and safe working practices.
At the end of the cooking session, the young carers serve and eat the food they have prepared together with their peers attending club. Any leftovers are initially offered to those young carers who prepared the meal, and then to the whole group.
Duke of Edinburgh’s Award
This new offering, initially being piloted with our Young Adult Carers, delivers fortnightly training sessions for 7 individuals working towards their Bronze or Silver award. Dependent on funding, we would hope to expand our group and offer more places in subsequent years, including providing specialised support to young carers with additional needs who can also look to participate.
We believe that opportunity and adventure should be for everyone