Vertical Futures

These sessions are for young people living in Bristol, aged 16-25 who have additional needs (see FAQs below for our eligibility criteria). We will prioritise referrals for those young people who are not in education, training or employment.

In these sessions you’ll have the opportunity to try out different skills needed for a variety of ropes based careers. Rock Climbing Instructor, Industrial Rope Access and Aborist (Tree Surgery) skills.

We provide between 6 and 12 free sessions to 4-6 young people per year. We meet with you and talk to you about your goals and make a plan for the sessions. Our instructors are focussed on your needs and are lead by you.

We run the sessions for free, in some cases we ask organisations who have a budget for these activities to pay a subsidised amount towards them.

We will run some individual sessions and some sessions for the whole group. The groups are between 2-6 people depending on the needs of the young people in the cohort for each year.

All of the Crux Climbing Instructors work within these different jobs. We have a range of volunteers who join some of our sessions to talk to young people about their lives in these different ropes based jobs.

Some examples of these jobs are: professional climber, working in indoor climbing walls, to cleaning windows on skyscrapers in London, to building giant tree houses, rigging ropes for camera people to film wildlife, wildlife camera people, rigging ropes for adventure films, looking after (pruning) trees in arboretums, fixing wind turbines in Sweden.

There are many opportunities to travel the country and the world with ropes based careers if you enjoy learning knots, using equipment and leanring how to keep yourself and others safe!

Text, call or email us:

07907 450 244

info@cruxclimbing.co.uk

FAQs

    • Develop outdoor climbing skills

    • Develop physical strength (you don’t need to be physically strong already!)

    • Understand bodies and brains when we get stressed or scared

    • Meet other young people

    • Explore new places

  • Go to our about us section to see our instructors

  • We will provide you with all the equipment needed so you just need to bring yourself, some comfortable clothes, and some lunch!

  • Go to our info page on the benefits of climbing!

  • Our Eligibility Criteria is as follows. Young people who:

    For Vertical Futures Sessions you must be between 16-25 and have at least one of the following additional needs.

    Are a care leaver

    Have a mental health or substance misuse worker

    Have a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Condition or ADHD

    Have significant difficulty in engaging with college and on the pathway to diagnosis of ASC or ADHC

    Are at risk of violence

    Are engaged with the Justice System

    Are at risk of criminal or sexual exploitation

    Have a physical or learning disability that affects access to work

    Are not in education, training or employment

    Any other additional need you feel is relevant will be considered.

    Don’t hesitate to get in touch with any questions.

  • This depends on you and what you need. We will cater the sessions for you. Some people might want to be in a group with others and some people might want to start with just an instructor and build up to being in a group. This is something we can talk about before we start.

  • We would like to be able to keep working with people for as long as they need it, but we also want to support as many young people as we can.

    We run sessions during the school holidays from May to October Half Term.

  • Yes. We try to meet all the young people that want to come to groups as this helps people feel more comfortable with coming to the group on their first session.