Health & Wellbeing

Sport and Fitness 

This work takes place throughout our open access clubs and specialised sessions. Salmon Youth Centre has facilities for badminton, basketball, boxing, climbing, dance, fitness training, football, gymnastics, trampolining and volleyball. These take place in our four-court sports hall, our well-equipped exercise gym and on our 30-metre climbing wall. 

Sport is a gateway to healthy lives and a magnet for young people of all ages and abilities.  By engaging young people who face multiple and complex social issues, including care experience, disrupted education, unsafe home environments and more, our sports activities help put them on pathways that change the course of their lives.  

Our experienced youth workers challenge young people to discover what they can achieve, so they:

• Have the opportunity to participate in at least 60 minutes of physical activity daily. 
• Build positive attitudes to sport and physical health, including healthy diets and active lifestyles
• Increase their physical literacy from an early age, so they are more likely to pursue sports as they grow. 
• Foster goals and social bonds around healthy sports activities. 
• Enhance their physical, mental and emotional wellbeing.

Diet 

We offer hot nutritious food in our after school sessions In 2024/25, we provided 7,515 healthy meals, which always include fruit and vegetables thanks to our wonderful Chef, Thabo. 

Mental Health Support 

We have seen a growing number of young people attending Salmon who have experienced four or more Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). In response, we have appointed a part-time qualified Clinical Psychologist, Dr Blessing Bakare to deliver weekly one-to-one sessions, supporting young people in developing coping strategies to manage the trauma they have faced. Dr Bakare brings a wealth of expertise in young people’s mental health, along with a personal connection to Salmon—having been a member herself and a former student at local schools. 

Developing young people into healthy adults

An underlying principle of our work is to seek to enable young people to explore and start to take responsibility for their own health & well being, and to help them to see that they have the power to make positive changes in their lives. We believe that this will help young people develop into healthy adults who are able to make a success of their relationships, education and vocation.