As well as running our Teen Bar indoors we also have a detached team that work on the streets of Blyth to engage with young people that don’t access any youth provision.

Our regular detached work began at the beginning of July and our workers go out every Wednesday and Friday night and visit the Sports Centre Skate Park, Newsham, South Beach Park, Briardale centre, Isabella Centre area, Axwell Drive and Ridley Park. All of these places have been reported as hotspots for teens to hang around. Over the past two months our workers have met with over 300 young people and have built up a really positive rapport/relationship. The young people have been encouraged to come into Silx and are now even planning a trip to Dynamix Skate Park on a Sunday afternoon which is a fantastic achievement in such as short space of time.

Friday nights are probably the busier of the two nights our team go out and the one place that seems the most popular is Ridley Park, the park attracts well over 100 young people every week and residents and police were becoming concerned about the volume of young people descending on the park. After speaking to the young people and gathering feedback our detached team discovered that the main reason for going there is because they felt on a Friday there ‘was nothing to do’ or ‘nowhere to go’ so with that in mind Silx decided to help! For a long time now Silx has been open on Monday-Thursday evenings providing a mixture of recreational and educational activities, BUT NOW we are open on Friday nights too! Our first Friday session took place on Friday 2 October and nearly 50 young people were diverted from the park to us and had a great time! We are really pleased with the impact our detached team has made on the young people hanging around on the streets of Blyth and we are very excited to see how our Friday sessions develop…..

As well as opening on Friday nights we have decided to give Silx a bit of a shake up on other nights too as we don’t want the Teen Bar to become boring!

• We have joined forces with The Blyth Academy and we now offer a ‘younger’ session on a Monday night which is for school years 7, 8, 9 only, this means the younger teens can enjoy a night just for them and get to know Silx and the workers.
• Tuesday night is no longer in the mix, Tuesday is now a more chilled out night- young people can play their music, we have arts & crafts going on, pool competitions and we are planning a monthly movie night where we will be turning Silx into a Cinema! (free food courtesy of Greggs each week too)
• Wednesday nights are dedicated to health and wellbeing and we offer a range of activities including healthy cooking which is very popular
• Thursday night remains as ‘IN THE MIX’ all the young budding MC’s and DJ’s still come down to showcase what they can do and we provide FREE food from GREGGS
• Friday night- A great alternative to hanging out in the streets, chill out with friends, a variety of music played all night, xbox, pool and free food!

We now offer FREE WIFI in all of our sessions too 🙂