CLAPTON COMMON BOYS CLUB

About us: Clapton Common Boys Club (CCBC), charity number 1121347 was established in 2006 to improve the lives of disengaged and disadvantaged Jewish children and young people (cyp) in Hackney by providing them with stimulating and engaging extracurricular activities. We develop participants’ capabilities, skills and wellbeing, helping them to reach their potential.  We work with over 880 cyp and their families annually; providing a varied range of services; education, recreation, sports and training. We achieve this by helping CYP to develop stimulating and exciting activities during out-of-school hours and school holidays. We identify gaps in local provision and seek to fill these through community-led services. We also empower parents and carers, supporting them in their role as they strive to provide the best possible lives for their children, including providing financial support and poverty relief for families in need.

Our successful services have doubled in recent years to meet rising demand. We received the Queens Award for Voluntary Service and were awarded the London Youth Quality Assurance Mark (Gold), endorsed by the City Bridge Trust. We have all relevant policies in place (eg, safeguarding), which are reviewed annually and are in line with industry standards.

We provide activities for children and young people aged 5-25 in the London boroughs of Hackney and Haringey, including: -Daily activities plus a weekend schedule of:

*Breakfast, cycling, swimming, homework and reading

*Music, song, tech and engineering, arts and drama, gardening, trips

-Annual holiday playscheme (one week in winter; two weeks in summer)

-Anti-bullying and stay safe training

-Community library and new sensory playground

-Full-day facilities and programme for SEMH children

-Parent training and food presentation sessions

For the older cohort (aged 13-16), we run the following:

*Educational Heritage programme

*Bi-annual educational residential camping and trips

*Open access centre facilitating a range of activities including training, trips, in-house activities, IT and digital finance

*Mentoring programme

*Careers and employment: Supporting young people into long-term employment by providing IT training, job shadowing and experience.

*Accredited Lifeguard training

*Anti-smoking programme 

The Greatest Challenge: Covid and the Cost-of-Living Crisis have uprooted the lives of children, who are reeling and particularly adversely affected by the stressful situations at home and school. Children are needing more therapy and emotional support. We are working to keep those with additional needs healthy and adapting to the ever-changing landscape and its everlasting harming impacts. While monitoring and protecting our children’s physical health, we can point out opportunities for them to grow into healthy upstanding young adults.

User involvement: CCBC is a grassroots organisation with all trustees being members of the same community that it serves. This means that we are in close contact with the community and enjoy its trust and support. For all projects we have a youth advisory board that is pivotal in running projects, making day-to-day decisions in all aspects of projects as it evolve. Through using ongoing feedback through each project’s life we can fine-tune as necessary. In this way, projects are entirely user-led, run by and for the teens, ensuring its relevance, usefulness and effectiveness in achieving its planned outcomes in the most appropriate way possible.

Track record: We are best placed to deliver these services as we have a strong reputation for our unique work with yp, children and stakeholders.  Our work stands out as unique and user focused as Chaya Spitz of the Interlink Foundation quotes: “I am well acquainted with the work of CCBC, and have worked with their staff and board members over a number of years. Not only do CCBC provide important services to the local community, but they have also been an exemplar in many respects, triggering social and educational change that has cascaded to other organisations. Their work is widely respected within the community by the local statutory sector”.