When we first went to meet Youth Shedz Founder, Scott Jenkinson, at the Youth Shed in Denbigh Hwb, we were not only blown away by Scott’s own story, but by his huge passion to help and enable young people to turn their lives around. As a recovering addict himself, with significant periods of homelessness, and many other personal challenges throughout his life, following his final period in rehab, he made the decision to turn his life around, and had become a teacher, before going on to set up Youth Shedz charity, to support young people, whose personal challenges, choices and consequential behaviours had put them into a position where their future path and quality of life was uncertain, and you find out more about Scott and the Youth Shedz journey so far on the Youth Shedz website

Scott’s goal is to have a Youth Shed in every town, and every month more and more young people from different areas are benefitting from the incredible work this charity do. However, with only one Scott, strategic growth and development was challenging, and recognising this, the charity approached The Neumark Foundation to see if we would consider supporting Youth Shedz to take on another Coordinator to support Scott with the development, and we were absolutely delighted to say yes.

Following months of planning and interviews, we were over the moon to hear the wonderful news that Cara had been recruited and would be starting in October, and here is Scott with Cara to tell us more.

With thanks to the amazing Neumark Foundation, we have been able to recruit and employ a new Youth Shed worker! Cara started with us this month and has had a very busy couple of weeks settling in and getting to know our young people l!

Cara come to us at a very exciting time as a charity where she will help us develop our projects and build upon the foundations built over the past four years. 

Cara’s role will be coordinating Youth Shedz across North Wales so her first couple of weeks in post have been spent visiting them all and doing a dynamic induction! 

As well as reading up on all her new policies and procedures she’s also been getting hands on in sessions with some cooking, craft and VR with some of our young Shedderz! In her first week she was even able to join us at the Streetgames Awards where we picked up two awards for Best Mental Health and well-being Award and Best Streetgames Doorstep Project! Not a bad way to start in a new job!!!

Here’s a little intro from Cara herself:

“My name is Cara and I am the newest member of the Shedz team. I am from Anglesey and have spent the past 14 years supporting young people. I am a qualified youth worker and SRE facilitator. I am passionate about Art therapy, eco therapy and the positive effects they have on peoples mental health and wellbeing. I am currently undertaking a part time degree in fine art to work towards qualifying as an art therapist. I am also passionate about supporting and campaigning for LBGTQ rights. I am excited to be joining a dynamic team with an exciting vision!”

Cara – Youth Shedz Cymru

So, we are super excited to have Cara on board, very grateful to the Neumark Foundation for funding her post, and we look forward to keeping you up to date with things as they progress.

“So, we are super excited to have Cara on board, very grateful to the Neumark Foundation for funding her post, and we look forward to keeping you up to date with things as they progress.”

Scott – Youth Shedz Cymru

“We are so pleased that we have been able to help, and that Cara has now started, with all her incredible experience, supporting Scott and the Youth Shedz team with their growth plans. We look forward to meeting Cara and would really like to wish her the very best in her new role.”

Rebecca Neumark, CEO at The Neumark Foundation