Welcome to M13 Youth Project

We’re delighted to present this film about M13 Youth Project's detached youth work and mental health support work with young men, made by UKYouth to showcase the impact of their Thriving Minds fund.

The UK Youth Fund: Thriving Minds was an ambitious fund that supported youth organisations and partnerships working to improve mental health support and provision for young people. The A6 Youth and Play Partnership (M13 Youth Project, Anson Cabin and Levenshulme Youth Project) received three-year unrestricted funding between 2022-25 to support and develop our mental health work with and for young people.

The film features M13’s Founder, Dr Helen Gatenby, who shares insights into our detached youth work; along with several of our dedicated youth workers, who are out on the streets daily providing real-time support and interventions; and some of the young men themselves, who openly reflect on the positive impact that M13 has had on their lives.

M13 Youth Project is 30 years old this year!

We celebrated 30 years of dynamic youth and play work with children, young people, young dads, friends and colleagues (old and new!) on Saturday 28th June, 2025.

There were fun activities for children and young people, a photographic display of M13 throughout the years (many people who came spotted themselves in the pictures!), a time of sharing stories and, of course, lots of food! Thank you to everyone who came and helped us celebrate. It was a fantastic occasion of great joy and wonderful memories.

M13 Youth Project works together with young people in their local communities to enrich their lives; through co-creating life-enhancing relationships, conversations, safe places and activities that foster fun, learning, action and transformation.

We are recognised nationally as experts in detached youth work and respected for our quality, longevity, grassroots community commitment and development of participants into practitioners. Young people describe our impact as 'deep', 'massively helpful', 'life-changing', and, on occasion, 'life-saving'.

We work with over 600 children and young people a year in Ardwick and Hulme, and city-wide through our Young Dads’ Project, through various creative and dynamic core youth work and projects, chosen by, and that has meaning for, the young people involved. Our empathic approach is informed by the principles and practices of youth work, informal education and trauma-informed practice, underpinned by our open and inclusive Christian value base that emphasises love and justice. We believe all young people deserve to be treated with respect and dignity and that each young person can love, think, create, reflect, enjoy, achieve and make a positive difference to their world.

M13 is a Registered Charity, No 1197730 (from 13th July 2022, formerly Charity No. 1069401), established in January 1995 by Dr Helen Gatenby.