FACE update

Debbie Teml Charity Director

“It’s been another busy year for FACE, the first full year really since the pandemic when it feels like we’ve got to some sort of ‘new normal’.”

Youth Work

Our youth club activities continue to grow and remain the core focus of FACE’s work. With youth clubs provided from School Year 3+, Duke of Edinburgh’s awards, volunteering schemes, trips, and holiday time activities, there is always something for young people to get involved with at FACE.

The youth work activities at FACE are funded partly by South Glos Council Youth Activities Offer, and partly by the Filton Town Council. Extra funding supports activities during holidays and Duke of Edinburgh’s awards. This past year in total through all our youth work in Filton we have welcomed 174 individual young people through the door at FACE, at a total of 189 sessions, with an overall attendance of 2,506. Our youth work team attended the Youth Workers conference where we led 2 workshops. The highlight of the year was taking 18 young people to the South Glos Youth Awards night in February where they gained a mixture of South Glos Awards and Duke of Edinburgh’s awards.

Community Work

We run a weekly evening group for adults with social or learning disabilities, with 58 people on the register as attended the 41 sessions this year, with overall attendance of 880. This is a popular and well established group of disabled adult members, some of whom have been coming since they were teenagers.

We collect food from Tesco Express in Stoke Gifford & ASDA Filton, as part of the Fareshare scheme to reduce food waste, and items are placed outside our doors throughout the year when we have donations. We are also now accepting regular donations from Farmfoods in Filton too. We pop out a donation bucket so people can give as much as they are able to in order to help us sustain our services here. These are being appreciated by local people to help them get through the week and make their income go further

In addition, we have provided 220 community well being activities such as Silver Surfers, tai chi, low impact fitness, monthly Goldies sing along sessions, and coffee mornings which have attracted in excess of 1,800 people through the door during the past year. This does not include all those people who come weekly for community learning courses, to visit our food donations tables, or other events and activities we host within the youth centre.

We also coordinated the Filton Wonderful Windows Arts Trail in November, (with the help of a fab group of local volunteers!) which we estimate was enjoyed by around 500 people, and together with the Filton Community Garden ran a lovely (but chilly!!) Christmas Sing along hour attended by just over 50 people!

FACE Charity Development

FACE has grown lots over the past year; we are now providing more youth work across wider areas of South Gloucestershire and are the ‘Lot Lead’ for youth work for South Glos Council for the geographical area from Tortworth to Filton, and Alveston to Severn Beach.

We have taken part in Bristol Job Show, trying to encourage more people to join our team, but like many others, we struggle to fill our vacant youth worker positions.

We have had 2 whole team events this year, for training, staff engagement, and charity development. These have been vital to strengthen our relationships with each other as we seek to better serve those who use our services.