Youth Work Resource Downloads

This part of the website is a virtual resource library full of downloadable social education resources to help you get the most out of your sessions with young people. Complete with additional facts and information, these easy-to-use session plans enable youth workers, teachers and voluntary sector youth leaders to facilitate young people’s learning with confidence, regardless of their own knowledge of the subject. Activities are suitable for young people aged 11-19, and where possible offer alternative delivery methods for those with additional needs.

Split into 20 sections you can browse what’s on offer before selecting your choices and placing them in your shopping cart.

Teambuilding & Groupwork

Stuck for an idea? Want to get young people motivated and working together? This collection of games, projects and activities develop young people’s communication and leadership skills and encourage participation.

Detached & Street-based Youth Work

This range of session plans is for those working outside of building based youth projects. Specifically designed so that few resources are needed, activities include those to explore issues such as gender stereotypes, offending behaviour, values, trust and street safety. They also aim to improve skills such as teamwork, communication, compromise and negotiation.

Positive Relationships

Relationships are a hot topic but what exactly is a ‘positive relationship’? This section is packed with ideas to explore all kinds of relationships – including friends, crushes, lovers and those in between – promoting assertiveness, self-respect and ways to support young people to make good choices, including the choice to abstain. Activities include those to consider friendships, relationships with parents / guardians and ways to explore peer pressure, as well as promoting good sexual health and safer sex education.

Parenting

Parenting is a 24/7 job, whatever age you are. These resources offer young people creative ways to explore the responsibilities of parenting as well as raising aspirations and increasing confidence. Suitable for young people who are parenting alone or with the support of a partner, as well as those without children, there are sessions to develop a toolkit of skills to support the massive challenge that is parenthood, and help participants develop into healthy, happy young adults.

Body Image

These activities aim to help young people build positive self-esteem and gain confidence by understanding and dealing with feelings about physical appearance, in particular weight and shape. Aimed at all young people, these sessions encourage discussion, explore the media and challenge assumptions about the ‘perfect’ body.

Equality & Diversity

This section offers a series of creative session plans to celebrate diversity, explore attitudes and stereotypes and define equality. Choose from sessions to challenge discriminatory attitudes, explore heritage and culture and increase young people’s awareness of inequalities as well as activities to promote community development and unity.

Anti-bullying

Bullying is something that most young people will have experience of directly or indirectly at some point. The activities in this area explore different types of bullying, including relationship and cyber-bullying, as well as the emotional impact that bullying can have. There are also session plans to train ‘buddies’ and peer mentors to support the victims of bullying and help bullies who want to change their behaviour.

Risk taking & Offending Behaviour

In this section there are resources to explore risk taking, offending, personal triggers and keeping safe with young people. Included are activities that explore young people’s attitudes and values around offending, anti-social behaviour and their community. There are also ideas for restorative justice projects and diversionary activities.

Anger Management

This range of activities enables young people to explore their angry and aggressive behaviour and experiment with new ways to express feelings in a more positive way. Sessions include responses to challenging/difficult situations, managing stress, factors & 'triggers' that can lead to aggression and simple techniques to cope better with challenging situations.

Health & Wellbeing

These games and activities take a holistic approach to health, encouraging young people to take care of their physical and emotional wellbeing and promoting healthy lifestyles. This includes ideas for delivering sessions around healthy eating and nutrition, exercise, lifestyle choices and stress management to help support good mental health.

Assertiveness & Confidence

Developing young people’s confidence and building the skills required to be assertive can enable young people to express their feelings and opinions positively in a wide range of situations from public speaking to personal relationships. The activities here include sessions to develop advocacy skills, give presentations, speak in public and differentiate between passive, aggressive and assertive behaviour.

Drugs & Alcohol

Most young people will come into contact with drugs, tobacco or alcohol at some stage in their life and will need to make decisions and choices. The resources in this section offer creative ways to give information and explore values and attitudes, whilst building the skills required for young people to make positive choices to keep safe.

Drama & Roleplay

Drama and role-play activities enable young people to literally “step outside” of their own life experiences and work through issues, express feelings and explore differences within a chosen role. The ideas selected here create opportunities to try out different responses to a wide range of situations and model different behaviours, without necessarily leading to a performance. Importantly, through role-play young people can learn not just about themselves but also develop empathy for others.

Media & Popular Culture

In a digital age young people are bombarded with images and concepts via television, radio and the Internet. These session plans help young people explore different types of advertising and the techniques used to communicate with a target audience as well as look at the influence of newspapers and magazines on popular culture. From reality TV and soaps to cinema and billboards young people can begin to gain an understanding of the powerful role of the media.

Arts & Crafts

Creative projects are an excellent way to encourage young people to explore their feelings and express themselves. Within this section there are so many art forms to choose from – music, dance, painting, photography and crafts. With so many different activities to choose from there is always an art form that will appeal to young people.

Community Participation & Citizenship

Increasingly agencies are looking to consult with young people and encourage their active involvement in shaping the services that affect them. This section offers a range of resources to explore active citizenship, motivating young people to get involved in their communities, support volunteering, develop peer mentoring and bring about positive change.

Developing Employability Skills

These sessions are designed to stimulate and motivate young people and increase their self-confidence. As well as exploring education, training and work options, challenging stereotypes and identifying transferable skills, this section includes activities to increase employability, in order to reduce the number of young people becoming NEET, or disengaging.

Work with Young Women

This collection of resources is aimed at young women meeting in a single gender environment, e.g. a girls group. The ideas have been specifically developed for discussion and small group work, with opportunities to explore femininity and issues important to young women. These include aspirations, self-esteem, confidence and assertiveness as well as body image, positive relationships and peer choices.

Work with Young Men

This section contains a diverse collection of games, activities and projects specifically devised to engage, motivate and meet the needs of young men. The ideas offer opportunities to build self-esteem, confidence and assertiveness skills as well as consider masculinity and the pressures on young men today. Issues include understanding anger, offending, citizenship and peer pressure, as well as work around relationships and healthy lifestyles.

Evaluation & Endings

Successful closing activities encourage young people to celebrate their achievements and help identify further learning needs. Additionally they enable facilitators to review the effectiveness of sessions and assess whether aims and objectives set have been met. This compilation of activities contains a whole range of techniques and activities to review and evaluate both groupwork and individual sessions with young people.