Sandwell Council has received a £92,000 grant from the Armed Forces Covenant to deliver six residential programmes at both Ingestre Hall, Staffordshire and Plas Gwynant, Snowdonia. The project was officially launched on Tuesday 18 October at Ingestre Hall, Staffordshire where there were representatives from Sandwell Council and the Army Welfare Service 11 Signals and West Midlands Brigade.
The project aims to engage 250 children and young people from Sandwell Council youth services and Army Welfare youth clubs in shared residential experiences, meeting each other, creating friendships, and achieving success together.
Councillor Simon Hackett, cabinet member for children's services said: "We have these great residential centres away from Sandwell already offering valuable experiences to our young people.
"I'm really pleased we can offer these courses to young people from the Army Welfare youth clubs.
"I'm sure this project will be a great success and the young people involved will really benefit from and enjoy the residential courses."
The project will run six residential programmes in total in 2017, at two of Sandwell’s residential centres: three at Plas Gwynant in Snowdonia, where participants will take on challenging outdoor adventurous activities such as kayaking, gorge walking and rock climbing; and three at Ingestre Hall, with a range of creative arts – music, dance, drama, visual art and media, all in a stately home setting.
The children and young people will be accompanied by professional youth workers from Sandwell Council and the Army Welfare Service, with activities led by Residential Service tutors and instructors; this partnership working is already proving valuable.
It is anticipated that this pilot project will shape future programmes and strengthen relationships between Sandwell Council and the Army Welfare Service and that the learning will be shared nationally.
