Braintree Youth Project Charity

Braintree Youth Project Charity is a Christian Organisation, creating a caring and safe environment in which young people are respected, valued and offered opportunities. We offer a drop-in centre for young people aged between 11 and 18 years, where they are able to enjoy food and drink, have a chance to relax with their friends in safety and find support when the need arises. 

We offer young people the opportunity to join in with a variety of activities at ‘The Hut’ (the BYPC premises); such as cooking, art, crafts, sport, board games, movie nights and more, as well as education and training. Sometimes there are opportunities for the young people to enjoy days out and special activities at adventure centres, the cinema, bowling, laser tag and more.. We also try to make opportunities to take the young people on residential trips to places like Wales or the Lake District, where they can do lots of outdoor activities and perhaps learn new things about themselves and their capabilities.

At BYPC, we offer hospitality to everyone we meet in an atmosphere of safety, with a focus on young people. We seek to nurture young people as they develop the qualities of respect, care, empathy, courage, responsibility and resilience in their lives. We demonstrate the same love to them that we believe God shows to us. All young people are welcome without regard to class, race, gender, sexuality, religion or background.

BYPC is a Christian charity. We believe that God created and values all human beings as precious and wonderful.  As followers of Christ, we are called to take every opportunity to show people just how valuable and precious they are to God and, through the work of BYPC, we partner with organisations and friends, whether they share our faith or not, to help young people know that they are cared for, respected, valued and worthwhile so that they can make the most of good opportunities.

While volunteers are not required to hold a Christian faith, it is expected that they share in the aims, ethos and vision of the charity.

We are always looking for more volunteers to join our team. All roles require DBS checks, however they will be paid for by the charity. You do not need to have any experience in youth work, you just have to be interested in young people. We ask all of our volunteers for a minimum commitment of 2½ hours a month, which is the equivalent of one ordinary session. Together with this, every volunteer must undergo a minimum of 2½ hours training to cover essential subjects, such as safety and child protection. We have volunteers of all ages, including older people, who simply give their time, attention and care to young people. It is an incredibly rewarding activity, no matter how old you might feel.

We currently have 3 different roles available at our sessions:

Host – Hosts are simply responsible for making young people feel welcome and wanted at the Hut. They need to be friendly, willing to listen without judgment and able to make warm drinks and toast.

Helper – Helpers help to run sessions and activities with the young people by supporting the session leader, taking responsibility for directing and supporting the young people and generally getting involved in a pro-active way. 

Session leader – The Session Leader is the person who oversees the session and activities with the young people, taking responsibility for their team of volunteers and being ‘in charge’.

There are other ways to volunteer with BYPC too. You might consider being a member of the Board of Trustees, offering administrative support in the office, have a special skill to share, or simply take part in any number of other things that help to offer the young people opportunities in a safe and caring community.