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An update from Reach!
Welcome back to the new academic year. I really hope you all had a lovely summer.
Firstly. We would like to welcome our new front-line Youth Worker colleagues. We believe they are going to make amazing additions to the team with our young people.
The summer saw a range of opportunities from the amazing home farm festival where our young people carried out the stage management support brilliantly, through to group trips, summer support sessions and the fab Youth Club entry into South Petherton Carnival – The Men in Black - winning 1st place in the Youth Walking category.
Our Hornets Nest land site/play work area is now in full swing. One to ones and groups have been heading there and using the facilities to play, build, cook and explore. We are excited to see what plants & food and students can start to grow there in the Spring.
We are very pleased to lead a National Youth Club tour this November for Youth Work Week. Our South Petherton young people will be pulling together to help share 50 meals that can be cooked in youth centres across the UK, which we will tour and deliver. Through the support of our MP, Adam Dance and other MPs, we hope to gain momentum for youth clubs to receive ongoing food support to enable them to cook a meal during sessions for sharing with their young people. The tour will also enable young people to write messages of hope over our van fleet to other young people all across the UK at a time when it is very much needed.
Any support you need as a school, please get in touch. Whether it is an enquiry about a young person or needing a quality assurance visit, feel free to contact us anytime.
Our next immersive shadow half day for any school staff member is Tuesday 1st December (8.30 am – 12.30 pm). Please email me directly to discuss or book in.
Our next quality assurance drop in for schools (for all schools) will be Monday 11th January 2027, 4 pm at South Petherton Youth Centre (TA13 5AU). No need to book in.
What's on at Chard Community Hub this term
Good Business Charter Accreditation
Reach is delighted to have achieved Good Business Charter accreditation! ⭐
This national recognition reflects our commitment to doing business responsibly — putting people and the planet at the heart of how we operate.
The Good Business Charter sets a high bar! To gain accreditation, we are committed to ten components, which include paying the real Living Wage, listening to employee voices, sourcing ethically, protecting the environment and paying our fair share of tax.
Our young people, local schools and employees care about how we do business – and so do we. Together, we’re working to create a fairer, more sustainable society for all.
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South Petherton Summer Opening times
Our new play workspace -
The Hornet's nest in East Lambrook!
Our new base in Mendip at
Evercreech Youth Centre
Our new mobile provision - Motion!
Chard Community Hub
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FREE Football training sessions
Devon & Somerset Flight Training
January 2026
We have been visiting Devon & Somerset Flight training today to give our next set of young people an opportunity for a flying lesson
Where did my Youth Centre Go - LinkedIn
January 2026
We’ve allowed a society to emerge with less space for young people - and then criminalised them for existing in the gaps left behind. Young people haven’t become the problem. What looks like a problem is really the absence of space, support, and opportunity.
We stripped youth provision, erased spaces genuinely designed for young people and cut the extent of opportunities. Then acted shocked when they showed up elsewhere. Loud. Visible. Messy. Young.
Young people in public are treated as suspicious by default. “Anti-social behaviour” is often just young people existing in public, after we’ve decided there’s nowhere for them to belong.
Instead of asking what we take away?
We ask what’s wrong with them?
Remember, adolescence is meant to be chaotic. Risk-taking and boundary-testing aren’t failures. It is development. Yet, we are now in a world where mistakes cost more than they used to. So when dedicated youth spaces and support are removed, that development doesn’t stop. It becomes exposed. Available. Bored. Exploited. In streets, parks, and that dry undercover car park, become the arenas for growth that should have been held within youth centres. You know, those spaces designed for young people. Now those risks are on show, and suddenly you see a problem, a label, and a young person is redefined by their most visible behaviour rather than their unmet needs.
We stopped funding relationships and started funding reactions. Now we’re surprised young people feel invisible. So moving young people on doesn’t solve anything. It just teaches them they’re unwanted and not listened to by adults.
If we’re serious about safer communities and better futures, youth spaces aren’t nostalgic - they’re preventative pillars of your communities. Close and defund them, and you don’t save a penny; you just delay the cost and deepen the damage.
Section 507B exists to protect youth services, yet authorities bend it to suit their budgets, leaving young people’s risk and energy visible and ignored. Oh, then blame them for the privilege.
So before blaming young people for what we’re seeing, ask the harder question:
Where’s their youth club gone - and why did we think they’d be fine without it?
School in a bag trip to Ghana during October 2025
