Young People - YMCA DownsLink Group

What does YMCA WiSE do?

YMCA WiSE supports young people around staying safe in relationships, online and in the community. 

Download the referral form here.

  • Once you’ve sent your referral to us, we aim to get back to you within 10 days
  • It’s really helpful if you can try to ensure your referral to us has as much detail as possible about what you are worried about. We may contact you to get any additional information we might need.
  • If you have a social worker, parent/carer or a trusted professional in your life it might be helpful for us to speak to them to ensure you have the support you need right now, especially if things are very difficult.
  • As a team we will then decide how best we can help you. Sometimes we may feel that we are not the right service for what you need and so we will speak to you and suggest other services who may be able to better support you with what you have going on.
  • If we are really worried about you and your safety, sometimes we have to share information with social services and/or police. We know sometimes this can be difficult but it is important you have the support you need to be safe. We will always talk to you about doing this where possible.
  • At times we have a waiting list, which means we can’t always start supporting you straight away. If this is the case, we will always give you helplines and let you know of other organisations you could speak to in the meantime.
  • If we feel that we can support you with what you need, you will be allocated to one of our team and they will contact you to arrange a time to meet up. You will be able to speak to your worker over the phone or by text to decide where and when is best to meet.

Who does YMCA WiSE work with?

We work with young people up to 25 years old in Brighton & Hove, East Sussex and Surrey.  

At some point in our lives, everyone will need support with relationships. This is regardless of our gender, sexuality or background. 

If you’re a young person who is interested in working with YMCA WiSE, it’s important that you know that you’ve already got skills when it comes to keeping safe. Our job is to help you to build on these strengths. 

To do this we work with you and the people in your life towards finding the best ways to support you. 

Everyone we work with is different: some people want to chat a lot, others not very much. That’s ok, because we are happy to adapt how we work. 

girl3

"I liked that I could talk about taboo subjects and not feel judged"

boyq

"It has helped a lot, I never opened up to professionals, but my WiSE worker helped me to open up and has taken a lot of problems off my shoulders"

girla

"I’ve learnt to be happier, safer and generally more confident with myself"

What can we do to help?

boya

We can meet you in places where you feel comfortable. This could be McDonalds, school, a youth centre or somewhere outside.   

We will work with you to build your own support plan. This means that you help to decide the topics we’ll cover, the type of work you want to do, and how often we meet.  

An example of the types of topics we cover; healthy relationships, consent, sexual health, online safety, grooming, keeping safe, self esteem.

We are a charitable independent organisation, so it’s your choice if you want to work with us. If you don’t want to work with us, or decide to stop, that is completely okay.  If you still need support we can suggest other organisations that could help. 

We believe that it’s important to ask young people for their expertise – to help us run our project as well as we can, click this link to our participation page.

WiSE isn’t a crisis service. If you are not safe please call 999.

YMCA-logo-2022-white

Copyright © 2025 YMCA DownsLink Group.

Scroll to Top
Skip to content