YMCA Youth Advice Centre (YAC) in Brighton
The YMCA Youth Advice Centre (YAC) offers
advice, support and guidance to young people in Brighton and Hove. YAC workers are able to offer expertise in a wide range of areas. Our aim is to provide young people in the local area with a safe and friendly environment where they can access helpful advice and support.
We are the first place to go for housing advice for anyone under 26 years old who is homeless or threatened with homelessness. We also offer a family support and mediation service and a support and advice service providing sexual health advice and services, emotional and wellbeing support and benefits and money advice.
We are proud to have been awarded The Allsorts Safer Spaces Award recognising our work to create a safe and welcoming space for LGBT+ young people.
*NEW WAY OF WORKING DURING COVID-19** - We will continue taking referrals both via telephone and online.
Housing advice & Support and Advice will continue via digital means and telephone support (in emergencies face-to-face).
Family mediation will continue via Zoom video conferencing and telephone support.
Floating support will continue via digital means and telephone support.
Telephone:  01273624432 (Our phonelines are open Monday – Friday 9am-4.30pm. If you are calling for Housing Advice our lines are open 9am-3pm.)
Emails for each service:
YAC Brighton Housing Advice –  [email protected]
YAC Family Mediation –  [email protected]
YAC Brighton Support and Advice –  [email protected]
YAC Social Media:   Facebook / Instagram
Support and Advice
The Support and Advice service is a safe space where any young person age 13-25 can talk to a worker one to one and receive support around a wide range of topics including:
- Sexual health: Pregnancy testing, chlamydia and gonorrhea screening, access to the C Card (free condom) scheme and relationship support.
- Emotional health and wellbeing: Anger management advice, self-esteem support, self-harm, stress and anxiety, bullying support and help accessing mental health support and counselling.
- Debt and benefits: Help filling in forms and support to make claims, budgeting and money management advice and help to access specialist benefit support.
Housing Advice
We offer support and advice to young people who are homeless or threatened with homelessness, which includes looking for accommodation in the private rented sector, negotiating with landlords, offering realistic and up-to-date advice on housing and how to pay for it and referrals to specialist housing schemes. Click here for more information.
YMCA YAC Talk it Over
Talk it Over is a Brighton based mediation project for 14 to 25 year olds that provides a safe space to talk and to share how you are feeling with a trained mediator to support the process. Mediation supports and improves relationship breakdown and has been successful in preventing youth homelessness. If you would like to know more click here.
Other support at YAC
YAC also accepts referrals through the Early help process.
Privacy notice
To see our privacy notice for young people using our services click here.
Our information sharing document explains why we may need to share young people's information and how we do this.
