Crowborough’s support service for young people, Clued-up.Info, is based in the high street and provides a drop-in service for young people looking for advice and support – almost like a Citizen’s Advice for young people but operating under different guidance.

Clued-up.Info is a charity and it relies heavily on funding to keep it running, as well as the help of volunteers supporting the operations side of the charity.

There are many reasons why young people visit the drop-in service and the youth workers there have a huge amount of information available at their finger tips to be able to help and point the young person in need to find a solution to their issue.

In an extreme case, someone may have found themselves kicked out of home and require shelter and depending on their age, the team would be able to set them on the right path to getting help.

A subject which is in the news frequently at the moment is about emotional and mental health and in young people this can lead to self harm, anxiety issues and much more.  Other common issues the team are used to dealing with are those around drugs, relationship issues, sexual health (contraceptives, pregnancy tests and STD tests are also made available), money, employment, education and health issues.  If the team are unable to help with a particular matter, they will research for the support that is required.

Over the last few years, the team has been working hard to keep the funding coming in for this service to continue (it has experienced some rough patches in the past but now is on the up).  However, the volunteer team are in much need of additional support and are looking for your help!  In particular, assistance with marketing, publicity and promotion of the service in the local area is much needed, as well as a revamp of the website which needs major updating to reflect the organisation as it is now.

The youth workers currently use a large paper file to access the relevant information and contact details they have in order to support the clients that come in to use the service.  To bring the system up-to-date, support is needed to turn this into an electronic document which will make it easier to search for the information required.

Of course other help would also be greatly appreciated such as that of form filling for funding – if any readers have experience in this area, the team would love to hear from you.  They can be contacted at 01892 661 990 or email cluedupinfo@gmail.com.

The Clued-up.Info team are also delighted that one of their previous service users, Jenni Andrews , is fundraising for the charity by doing a skydive in October.  If you’d like to donate to her skydive, you can find her sponsorship page on go fund me.

Featured in Issue 87 | September/October 2019