During the financial year, Essence Youth Mentoring CIC continued to provide a wide range of mentoring, wellbeing, enrichment and community-based activities for children, young people, women and families, with a particular focus on girls and young women. Our regular activities included our Girls Group, Youth Club and dance classes, providing safe and supportive spaces where young people could build friendships, develop confidence, improve their wellbeing and participate in positive activities within their community. We also delivered our Essence Evolves programme, supporting girls and young women with personal development, confidence, self-esteem, emotional wellbeing and life skills. Through mentoring, group activities and positive role models, young people were encouraged to recognise their strengths, develop resilience and make positive choices. Within schools, we delivered our Refocus workshops, providing targeted support to young people around behaviour, emotional regulation, communication, self-awareness, resilience and making positive choices. The workshops provided young people with practical strategies that could be used within school and their everyday lives, while supporting improved engagement with education. Throughout the year, we delivered Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programmes during the spring, summer and winter school holidays. These provided children and young people with physical activities, enrichment opportunities, nutritious food, social interaction and a safe environment during the school holidays. The programmes also supported families by providing accessible activities and experiences for their children. We provided additional enrichment opportunities, including taking a group of girls away on a residential holiday. This gave the young people an opportunity to experience time away from their usual environment, develop independence, strengthen friendships, try new activities and create positive memories. We also recognised and celebrated individual young people. This included organising birthday celebrations for girls we supported, helping them to feel valued, included and recognised and strengthening their sense of belonging within the Essence community. Our Women's Wellness Wednesday sessions were delivered at the Lighthouse Young People's Centre, creating a supportive space for women to access wellbeing activities, information, guidance and opportunities to connect with others. Essence also worked in partnership with Aquarius and Umbrella to provide young people with specialist awareness sessions, life-skills development and opportunities to complete online certifications. These partnerships enabled young people to access additional information, education and skills to support their wellbeing, personal development and future choices. Across all of our activities, Essence aimed to provide consistent, trusted and accessible support. Our work helped children, young people and women to develop confidence, improve their emotional and social wellbeing, build positive relationships, develop practical life skills, access new experiences and feel connected to a safe and supportive community.

Essence Youth Mentoring CIC’s stakeholders include the children and young people who access our services, parents and carers, women attending our wellbeing activities, schools, community organisations, partner agencies, staff, volunteers and other professionals involved in supporting the young people we work with. Consultation is an important part of how we develop and improve our services. For our HAF programmes, our parent sign-up forms include questions asking parents and carers what activities and experiences they would like their children to take part in during the programme. This feedback helps us to plan activities that reflect the interests and needs of the children and families attending. We also have a Girls Forum, which gives girls a voice in the development of our services. The girls are encouraged to tell us about issues affecting them, what support they feel they need and what activities, discussions, trips and experiences they would like to see within Girls Group. Their views are used to shape future sessions and activities. Young people are also consulted through informal discussions, one-to-one mentoring, group discussions and feedback during our programmes. We communicate with parents and carers and work closely with schools, community organisations and partner agencies to identify emerging needs and areas where additional support may be required. In response to stakeholder feedback, we have adapted activities, introduced new enrichment opportunities and trips, developed workshops around issues identified by young people, and continued to expand the wellbeing, life-skills and personal development opportunities available through Essence. This ongoing consultation ensures that our programmes are not simply designed for our community, but are shaped with the involvement of the children, young people and families who use them.

The directors have been paid to deliver some sessional work that was accounted for in the funded projects.

No transfer of assets other than for full consideration