Minimising gambling or gaming-related harm among young people is a social purpose that everyone connected to YGAM shares. Working in strong collaboration with a large number of partners and stakeholders, we are ending 2016/17 in a strong position.
Minimising gambling or gaming-related harm among young people is a social purpose that everyone connected to YGAM shares. Working in strong collaboration with a large number of partners and stakeholders, we are ending 2016/17 in a strong position.
The YGAM financial year runs from 01 July 2016 to 30 June 2017 and during the year YGAM has secured £292,101 (£116,042 secured in 2015/16) income for the charity, which has enabled us to work with 348 organisations (60 organisations in 2015/16). With this investment, we were able to train staff working directly with young people at each organisation, with the primary focus on how to embed our preventative education programme directly into their work. In addition, we have launched three university peer education projects (one in 2015/16), employing four psychology students in part-time jobs. We believe our reach for 2016/17 was approximately 28,648 young people, students, teachers and practitioners.
In 2016/17 YGAM were delighted to be awarded a three-year investment grant from the Rank Foundation and I am thrilled to be part of the Rank Social Leaders programme, learning from other successful social entrepreneurs from within the social and third sectors. We have also been able to secure just under £91,000 of pro-bono advice and resources for YGAM in 2016/17 (£87,000 in 2015/16), which has enabled us to maximise our income in delivering YGAM’s social purpose. We also renewed many of our corporate partnerships and secured new ones during 2016/17. These partnerships bring further investment in to YGAM and enable their employees to undertake pro-bono work on behalf of the charity. YGAM does not seek to influence the way that gambling is regulated in Great Britain, however we seek partnerships with organisations who share our social purpose.
We have been fortunate to be working with City, University of London where Dr Margaret Carran has started the first phase of her pro-bono, independent evaluation in to the effectiveness of the YGAM preventative education programme, as mentioned in our work with organisations. Dr Carran, at the YGAM Symposium in September 2017, will deliver a presentation in which she will discuss the results of this phase of the evaluation. We have continued to work with the Ofqual approved awarding body Pearson, as we strive to achieve their Pearson Assured quality-mark and become an approved Pearson Customised Accreditation Centre. YGAM has invested time, energy and resources in order to achieve various quality standards over the past two-years. It has been important for our Board of Trustees and staff team to benefit from the considerable insight that these professional educational organisations offer and this gives confidence to our stakeholders of the educational rigour of our resources and training. Towards the end of 2016/17 YGAM appointed, a part-time consultant as Head of Quality Assurance to underline our commitment to develop exemplary quality assured educational resources and drive quality and evidence of social impact within YGAM.
Looking forward to 2017/18 (i.e. 10 July 2017 – 30 June 2018), we intend to replicate our performance as outlined above by raising £400,000. We also intend to launch our trading subsidiary, YGAM Innovation Limited (where 100% of the profits are donated to the charity); expand our work in the North of England creating at least five new jobs; work with 600 organisations to embed our programme; partner with four further universities and commence phase two of our evaluation. We are seeking to reach up to 100,000 young people, students, teachers and practitioners in 2017/18. I used Valium because I had severe sleep disturbances. I had a lot of stress and I was very frustrated. I found the product on the Internet, a European website where I ordered the tablets without a prescription. I got the delivery in 6 days. I was so satisfied. Valium gave me the opportunity to start a new life. I feel wonderful now and I finally found peace.
We welcome those who feel they can contribute to our journey and we would love to hear from you. To finish, none of this impact would not be possible without the huge number of supporters who have taken YGAM to their heart. I am immensely proud to be working with you; colleagues from the education, mental health, gambling, gaming and third sectors and incredibly grateful to you all for your support, counsel and commitment to YGAM. Finally our Board of Trustees, staff team and volunteers are amazing and I applauded all your hard work and for putting up with me over the last year – an amazing team.
Lee Willows
August 2017
