Steven was first referred to the Y Futures project in late 2019 and showed a good interest in getting involved. He was keen to experience more STEAM opportunities (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Maths). Steven had a One to One taster session for our Coding Club and really enjoyed it and was happy register on the Employability Pipeline with Y Futures to take part in the next Coding Club.

After registration, the nation went into Lockdown, to combat the spread of the Coronavirus. All face to face work ceased and it looked as though he would have to wait for the restrictions to be lifted in order to take part. Thankfully, YMCA Tayside was able to move many of its services online and we re-established contact with him via a social networking platform called Discord. We had figured out a way to run our coding club virtually through Discord and Steven was in a position to take part. Through using the build in Streaming, Screen sharing, text and video chat functions we were able to successfully complete the first Coding Club course online. Steven participated in our online activities along with several other young people.

Outside of learning opportunities such as Coding Club we recognised that there was a need to combat social isolation so provided other social activities for participants to remain connected. Steven joined our online Minecraft server where he made some good friends and paved the way for him to feel more comfortable getting involved after lockdown was lifted.

We are now arranging for Steven to get accreditation for the work he did with us over lockdown. He has also secured himself a place at college. We are happy we could be a part of keeping his learning and motivation levels up over lockdown. He didn’t feel as isolated and was able to still move on to a college place.