Thrive
At the heart of our provision is the vision to empower young people, individually and collectively, for them to make positive decisions and changes in their lives and in their communities, to empower them to feel part of something.
We are mindful that the way we work focuses on improving the wellbeing of our young participants, we strive to work with them and be responsive to their needs. We incorporate the five ways to wellbeing into our delivery and use this to reinforce positive engagement between youth staff and young people.
As well as providing a robust weekly programme of activities, through consultation with our members, we work with outside agencies to expand young people’s opportunities to access education, training and work experience. Our youth programme is not narrowly targeted towards young people achieving qualifications and attainments but aims to allow them the flexibility to learn and develop in informal settings, have fun and discover their own aptitudes. For instance, in 2025-2026 young people received qualifications in Food Hygiene, Sports Leader Awards as well as Agored Cymru Bronze accreditations each excelling in their personal achievements.
The young people take part in experiences which help develop life skills such as, role responsibilities, time keeping, problem solving, communicating, resilience, self-control and working as a team in unpredictable situations, all of which can be adapted for later life.
We are so proud to be the winners of ‘Youth Provision of the year’ in the Active Citizen and Participation Awards 2025-2026 with Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council Academy of Success following previous wins in 2021-2022 & 2022-2023. Winning this award is always an amazing honour and recognises the commitment and hard work of the staff and young people.
We have been recognised for many of our projects and have successfully won second place in 2025-2026 for Group Project Award for Tackling Personal and Social Issues that Effect Young People, as well as ‘Creative Industries Award for Art, Culture & Media. Previous successes over the years have included our Girls’ Rights project winning ‘Best Innovative Youth Project of The Year’ Academy of Success 2022-2023 and a High Sheriff of Mid Glamorgan Youth Community Award 2022-2023.
I love cooking in youth and making new foods. I never thought i would like some of them but when i cooked them and tried them i found that i did like them. I have made lots of things like pizza’s, kebabs, burgers and waffles. I love going to youth club and cooking different food.
I have taken part and I have realised this is my safe space and do everything I want to do. I have been doing creative writing and I love it. I love everything that they give us and soon I will go to Bryn Bach park.
When I went to Dolygaer i did gorge walking and then I climbed 70 foot to come down the zip wire. I was really afraid and didn’t think I could do it. But I did, I was so scared but so proud and everyone cheered for me and supported me.
I have gained various new skills from going to youth. I go every week and really enjoy the workshops that are available. I’ve gained a lot of confidence since I’ve been here and now I have future goals to complete. I have started to get qualifications like Food Hygiene Level 2 and Principles and Practice of Firefighting.
I really enjoyed taking part in the Phoenix project. We got to do so many things like use the fire hydrant and hose, work in teams and do a search and rescue in the dark, which was really dark but really fun. I would love to do this again; the firemen were funny and I got to get a qualification.
