The Hill Young People's Group and Youth Support Centre was made possible by support from the Welsh Assembly's Communities First programme via the Hill CDT Ltd as Communities First Partnership for Townhill. The City and County of Swansea looks after their premises and line manages the staff team.

The Youth Support Centre is based in rooms above Townhill Community Centre and staff aim to enagage with local young people aged between 11 and 25 (with particular emphasis on those aged between 13 and 19) in a range of activities.

Gary Lerwell is the manager of the centre and he has a staff team which concentrates on three areas of work: detached youth work, information services and CITY magazine.

NEWS

Denmark farm Residential

In February 2010 Communities 1^st in partnership with the Hill Young People’s group were able to take a group of young people and local residents on a visit to Denmark Farm in Lampeter.

Based on its unique case study at Denmark Farm, the Trust has been pioneering the restoration of wildlife habitat to farmland since 1987.

All that attended the course learnt skills in coppicing trees, hedge laying and they also made their own broom out of natural materials. The skills that the group have learnt will be used on the Green Spaces on the Hill as part of the HEWG the Hill Environmental Working Group.

Sports Leaders award.

During February half term, 7 young people from the Hill enrolled in a Sports Leaders’ Award run by the Hill Youth Support Centre and Communities First Team. The group attended workshops, learnt new skills on how to be a leader in sport, health and safety, risk assessments and how to live a healthy lifestyle through sport and physical activity. One member of the group, Jack Clarke, commented “the award was brilliant as it gave me more confidence to present myself in front of people, whilst strengthening up my leadership skills. He also added that he is looking forward to doing more courses in the future”. Other comments from the group were that that they had a very enjoyable experience and the new skills they learnt will prove to be very useful especially when they deliver their final assessment activity at Mayhill community centre over the next couple of weeks.