At the Y we are here to support young people, families and communities. And, during these last few months majority of our services have remained open or have adapted to continue providing much needed programs and services to those who need them.
We understand change is inevitable, and as such we have grown and become versatile. We’ve listened to the challenges facing our communities and have let them know why we are still here.
All our child care services have remained open to provide vital care for essential workers and families, enabling these workers to remain working, providing care to their families. We’ve continued to provide 30+ years of experience in the child care sector, ensuring children and young people’s safety is always our number one priority. As a child safe organisation, the Y’s services always operate with extremely high standards and this didn’t falter during the coronavirus pandemic which disrupted many levels of our community.
Youth and community programs and services moved to the virtual space, adapting our engagement strategy by increasing the use of digital platforms to provide high level support to young people. We introduced a number of innovative online activities including epic dance challenges, live streamed artist interviews and music gigs, ensuring young people continue to feel connected to the Y even from home!
Our recreation centres moved online, providing fitness videos straight to the comfort of your own home whilst the centres were temporarily closed during the state-wide lockdown. We partnered with Les Mills Asia Pacific, to offer a first of its kind app access to fitness classes to over 200,000 Y staff, volunteers, members, families and communities.
Thankfully with restrictions easing, all our gyms and leisure centres throughout WA have been able to return to their normal operations with Mark Furr, General Manager for Youth, Community and Leisure, remarking "Participants have returned to our gyms at our recreations in higher than anticipated volumes, which is fantastic! Equally the opportunity to reengage face to face in our community is something management and staff have relished. And, where necessary we are ready and able to support our patrons to combat the COVID curves."
Although the future looks very different, we at the Y WA want to let you know we are here, and we’re here for you every step of the way. Thank you for sticking with us through this time.
We’d also like to thank our dedicated staff for their tireless dedication, patience and adaptability that allowed us to remain open during such uncertain times and are very grateful to our stakeholders for sticking with us through it all.