Aylesbury Vale Youth for Christ is a Christian charity committed to seeing young people’s lives changed by Jesus. We work in local schools, the prison, churches and youth groups across Aylesbury running schools work, monthly youth events, residentials and training. Our desire is for young people to know and understand the love of God shown to us through Jesus, and to enable them to follow Christ themselves.
All our work takes place in close partnership with the Christian Youth Leaders Network, who are a collection of youth leaders drawn from the local church.
Sometimes it’s valuable for a young person to meet up one to one with a youth leader. This may be to process things they’re experiencing or struggling with, exploring questions of life and faith or just having a sounding board outside their context who can offer another perspective. We love to spend time with young people in this way, whether they’re part of a faith community or not.
One to one sessions are there for young people to share their thoughts, feelings, concerns and questions. We’ll arrange to meet up in a coffee shop or similar public space (Covid-19 dependent) and give them the opportunity to talk about their perspectives. It’s fairly informal and is generally led by the needs of the young person on that particular day.
How long does a session last?
You can chose how long you want the session to last. The upper limit is 2 hours.
Where do you meet?
On the online form we’ll ask you to specify up to three places you’re happy for us to meet up with your young person. We’ll never deviate from these locations unless it’s been agreed by you in advance. We only meet one to one with young people in public spaces such as coffee shops, cafes or parks. If government guidance doesn’t allow meeting in public places, we’ll arrange a zoom call.
Are your mentors trained counsellors?
No. They are Christian youth leaders or volunteers who offer young people a place to voice their struggles or questions outside of their normal contexts. We follow safer recruitment processes to ensure that all our volunteers are suitable, have current DBS checks and receive safeguarding training.
How do you know what’s being talked about?
After every session we ask our youth leaders to submit a report online with the details of what was discussed. We read these to make sure everything is transparent and that any important information can be referred back to. There is also a form available for young people to feed back their experience at any stage.
Will I be told what was talked about?
We never guarantee complete confidentiality to young people as we need to ensure that safeguarding procedures are always followed. However, any information a young person shares with a youth leader that does not raise safeguarding concerns will be kept confidential. Any youth leader we work with will be a Christian and the conversation will often be informed by this but not exclusively revolving around matters of faith. Please refer to our statement of faith if you’d like any more information.
How many sessions does this include?
As many as you like. We’d recommend starting with one session and then booking further sessions if it’s going well.
Is there a charge for this?
No, there’s no cost. If you would like to you can make a donation to the work of Aylesbury Vale Youth for Christ.
If you’d like to set up a session, the first thing you need to do is register your young person with us. If you’re happy for us to contact them directly, please include their mobile number when you register. You can do that by clicking here.
Once you’ve registered, just click below to fill in the form and we’ll be in touch to confirm the arrangements with you.