Lambton Street Youth and Community Hub

About the Organisation

Lambton Street Youth and Community Hub (LSYCH) based in Sunderland are an award-winning organisation originally established in 1901 and are one of the oldest youth and community centres in Europe, celebrating over 120 years.

LSYCH acts as a community resource for individuals living in the City of Sunderland by providing advice and assistance and organising programmes of physical, educational and other activities as a means of:             

·       Helping individuals by developing their skills, capacities and capabilities to enable them to participate in society as independent, mature and responsible individuals.

·       Advancing education.   

·       Providing recreational and leisure time activity. 

Sunderland Voluntary Sector Alliance (SVSA) were approached by their management committee to help facilitate a development session to focus on bringing the committee members and paid employees together, to revisit their Mission, identify what 'community' means to them and consider new and innovative ways of raising income.

How we helped

SVSA met with the integral individuals to understand the purpose of the organisation and the purpose of the development session, where all staff and committee members were invited to attend. SVSA developed an agenda and led the morning at their hub, our role was to be an independent facilitator to nurture a rich and diverse conversation. The session covered:

1. Breaking down barriers: this was the first time paid employees and committee members had attended a meeting together to look at sustaining and growing the organisation.
2. Mission, Values, Purpose: looking at the current mission it was identified that this needed reviewing to align with the activities the hub currently offer and want to offer in the future. SVSA took this away and developed a draft Purpose, Mission and Values for the organisation to develop further.
3. Community Work: Identified key community demographics currently engaged and those that are not engaged, looking at which communities to target as a priority.
4. Business and Income: Identified current assets and worked in groups to think about how to maximise income streams using these assets.
5. Funding: Following the session, we provided the organisation with a list of potential funders that they could consider moving forward.

Outcome

With our support, LSYCH have been able to move forward with new ideas, renewed motivation and clearer direction to ensure they continue there current service offer and consider new areas of growth.

'The session was well received and there was a lot that had come out of it. I think it was a great success. Many thanks for supporting our journey'.

'I was absolutely thrilled with the morning you facilitated for us all, staff seem to have more ideas about their own personal development and how to take the project forward. For myself, I found doing the work with you, listening to everyone's ideas, and taking time off was useful. It gave me a lot of time to reflect and plenty of food for thought'.