Capability Scotland Matters - Summer 2022

Edinburgh Children’s Services
Each issue, we want
to bring you a bit of
information about our
services in terms of their overall
aims and what they do.
Last issue we looked at our
Dumfries & Galloway Services.
This issue, we’re bringing it to the
capital to look at two elements of
our Edinburgh Children’s Services!
YouthZone
At the weekends, you will
find our young people and
staff team having lots of fun
and getting up to mischief at
YouthZone, our youth club for
children with additional needs.
Based at Riccarton, we spend
time doing activities like arts
and crafts, sports, games, and
sensory exploration. Planning at
YouthZone is led by our young
attendees, so our experiences
change every week. This means
we get to try lots of new things,
like baking healthy treats (sweet
potato brownies, yum!).
Our aims for YouthZone have
always been steadfast and we
believe we achieve them well. We
aim to reduce social isolation,
provide opportunities to access
and build positive connections
with the wider community, build
and practise daily living skills
and independence, engage
in fun experiences in a safe
and supportive way, learn new
skills and expand interests.
Recently, Isla, one of our young
people, had attended a Zumba
class and wanted to show off her
new skills to everyone, so we’ve
now got a Zumba session planned!
We have a few creative pranksters
that attend our sessions at
YouthZone, who enjoy playing
tricks, dressing up and hiding,
waiting to make the staff jump!
This year, we have been looking
at getting out into the community
more, going to local parks and
swimming has been a favourite
Building relationships with
local organisations to run new
activities at YouthZone is a goal
for us this year – dance, sports,
cooking, outdoor learning such
as gardening and camping
safely are some of the key
opportunities we’re looking to
provide for our young people.
YouthZone has been expanding
over recent months. We now offer
sessions to a younger age group
of 5 to 11-year-olds as well as
continuing to deliver Saturday
sessions to 12 to 18-yearolds.
We have also increased
the number of young people
attending sessions from 10 to 12.
This means we now support
over 45 young people over four
weekends. Our next exciting
development for YouthZone is
our new venue! We will soon be
opening up a second venue in the
Craigmillar area of Edinburgh
with the hope that this will
allow more young people to be
supported from different areas
of the city. This will be a great
addition as the location is
close to shops, libraries, parks
and bus links. We hope that the
young people will enjoy getting out
into the community and continue
learning independent skills.
Holiday Support Hub
Last year, Capability Scotland
was asked to deliver a holiday
support service to children and
young people in need of some
structure, respite and most of
all - fun! This service is all about
having a relaxed environment with
lots of opportunities to gain new
experiences and make positive
memories. School holidays can
be a cause for anxieties for
families with disabled children
so this service helps fill up some
of that time with excitement and
getting out of the house for fun.
The aims and outcomes for this
new service delivery are quite
similar to YouthZone’s: we want
to provide positive experiences
for disabled young people during
the holidays; provide a safe place
to explore and play with support;
provide respite for families;
provide routine and structure
to the day during holidays. And
we’re meeting our aims well!
We supported up to 10 children
each day of the summer holidays,
ages 5 to 18 years old, including
some siblings. We have continued
this through October, and
February, moving to a new location
at Kaimes School in South East
Edinburgh. The new venue has
been wonderful to run the Holiday
Hub in as it is more suited to
the needs of the young people
we have attending. We have
lots of open space for a variety
of play experiences as well as
access to a kitchen. There are
local shops and play parks which
have been fun to visit. The team
is looking forward to be able to
fully explore the nature walks in
the warmer months too. There are
some great bus links too, so we can
be in town easily for days out.
It has been lovely for our
teams to meet and support
all the new young people
through lots of fun play-based
activities. We have had lots of
returning faces each holiday
as well as new young people
to get to know. Some of the
families were so happy with
the Holiday Support Hub
that they have joined our
YouthZone service too! We are
looking forward to continuing
to deliver this service during
future school holidays!
If you work with an
Edinburgh (or nearby)
based organisation who can
introduce our young people
to new activities, please
get in touch if you’d like to
explore working together:
hello@capability.scot
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