Shine was a model developed by YMCA Leicestershire over 14 years, shaped by everything we’d learned about creating services that truly reach young people with complex needs — fairly, equally, and with the dignity they deserve.
When we say complex needs, we mean situations where a young person was facing three or more overlapping challenges, often while feeling shut out by traditional services.
That might’ve included homelessness, mental health struggles, fractured relationships, self-harm, or substance use.
More often than not, those needs were rooted in early trauma — and that understanding became the foundation for how we shaped Shine.
We built Shine on one big idea:
That young people with the highest needs should never be the ones pushed furthest from support.
So, we created a change management framework that helped supported accommodation providers rethink how they work — with the aim of building safer, more responsive spaces for young people who’d often been left out of the system.
Using a hub-and-spoke model and a co-produced, open approach, Shine focused on driving change at an organisational level — because that’s where lasting impact begins.
The result?
Better environments.
Better outcomes.
And young people who didn’t just enter services — but belonged in them.
Our work is underpinned by the following principles:
Between 2019 and 2021 Shine worked with YMCA: Lincolnshire, Sutton Coldfield, Wellington & Telford, Burton, North Staffordshire and Heart of England and continue to seek expand our impact across the YMCA federation. We have also developed a range of training modules available to organisations who are interested in becoming more trauma and complex needs informed.
If your organisation would like to discuss how Shine might add value to the work you do please get in touch: [email protected]
