Since the beginning of the year, we have a new regular group in our Lounge — Youth Space. Previously the group met at the Papanui Youth Development Trust Centre. Because the Youth Centre cannot have so many groups meeting there due to COVID-19 restrictions , Youth Space has found a home with St Paul’s for a few months.
Anna Lawler, one of the community workers, has given us an introduction to Youth Space:

Our overall aim of Youth Space is to support youth with intellectual disabilities to achieve their goals through facilitation and ongoing support. We structure and plan a curriculum based around the individual goals of the youth we support. For example, if somebody has a goal of learning a new language, we would create a learning session based on this.

The youths in our programme are very social and love to have a laugh so we ensure that we have plenty of time for social activities also. 
Each term we have a staff planning week in which we take a list of the goals that the youths have given us and comprise a plan for the upcoming term.

Our guys are mostly independent so they can go out in the community to buy lunch etc. and a great deal of them catch the bus to and from the group.
We are currently based in this building from 8:30-3:30 pm Wednesday to Friday.

Thank you for allowing us to use this space! It has been great having a quiet area to work on our learning sessions.

Blessings – Tim