The Studio, Swansea
Our community space on Mansel Street. We run sessions here for young people placed in Swansea by any authority, and training days for authority teams.
A public cafe young people already know
The Studio is a public cafe and venue in Swansea city centre, run as a community space for care leavers and unaccompanied young people. It hosts the drop-ins, the Welcome to Swansea course and peer mentoring, and teaches hospitality skills in the cafe.
The last eight-week DJ course ended with young people performing to a crowd of 60. Barista-trained young people ran the bar.
Unaccompanied young people are placed in Swansea by authorities across South, Mid and West Wales, and their workers are often an hour or two away. The sessions are in Swansea, so the young person is already near the person they are meeting.
Sessions for a young person, or a day for your team
Neither depends on the young person being placed with TIFA Life, and neither is tied to a contract for accommodation.
Sessions with our UASC lead
We charge by the hour at our published staffing rate, with no minimum term. The figure is in the sessions sheet and the guide rate card.
For unaccompanied young people aged 16 to 25 living in or near Swansea, whoever houses them. Sessions cover letters and appointments, daily living, education, and cultural and community links. A case note follows every session. Adina Thomas, who leads them, does not give immigration advice.
The full unaccompanied young people offerTraining and experience days
Dates and prices on request
Open to any authority's team, whether or not it places with TIFA Life. They are not an accredited qualification.
Our UASC lead runs six practice sessions for social workers, personal advisers, support workers and managers, at your offices or the Studio. Young people with lived experience take part where they choose to. No session gives immigration advice.
The six sessionsHow a session is booked and recorded
Booking
A weekly slot, or sessions arranged around the young person’s timetable. No minimum term.
Groups
Charged as group sessions, never as stacked one-to-one hours. Ask us for group prices.
The record
Recorded in TIFA Connect on the day, with a case note to you after every session.
Elsewhere
The same hours delivered into a placement your authority runs, from an hour a day.
What a session covers
Letters and appointments
We explain solicitor and Home Office letters, chase solicitors, and prepare for and attend interviews and appointments where it helps. Advice comes from solicitors and registered immigration advisers.
Independence
Bank account, phone, bus pass, GP and dentist, college and ESOL enrolment, budgeting, cooking and keeping safe in Swansea. The Welcome to Swansea course covers a new arrival’s first weeks.
Culture and community
Faith and community links, food, friendships, peer mentoring, and activities from football to the gym. Cultural awareness for the young person, and separately for your staff.
Any safeguarding concern reaches our safeguarding lead and your authority the same day, by telephone first where there is immediate risk. The booking confirms the agreed work and the charge.
The six sessions
Five years after the National Transfer Scheme became mandatory, most teams still learn this work on the job. These are the six sessions, available to teams from any authority.
Triple planning
Planning for all three outcomes at once, a grant of leave, a refusal and a long wait, and what each means for the home, education, money and the pathway plan.
The journey of a child seeking sanctuary
Arrival, the intake unit, the transfer, the first weeks in a new town, and what young people said they needed at the 2024 and 2025 consultations.
Meeting cultural needs
Faith, food, language and dialect, interpreters, and which questions to ask the young person.
Day to day
Trust and communication, the first 72 hours, keeping safe from exploitation and going missing, routes into college, ESOL and health, and who is who around the young person.
What the authority has to do, and when
Statutory visits, the personal adviser and pathway plan once a young person has been looked after for 13 weeks, what changes at 18 and 21, and the Home Office funding behind each stage.
Experience day
A day shadowing the hub at the Studio, including the drop-in, appointments, case notes, and questions to young people who have been through it.
Formats
90-minute team session
One session, scenario based, at your offices or at the Studio.
Half-day workshop
Two or three sessions built around the cases in front of your team, with an action plan at the end.
Experience day
Session 06 at the Studio, one or two workers at a time. Dates are limited.
Workers are welcome on a first visit
Come and see it before you commission anything. 95 Mansel Street, Swansea SA1 5TZ, Monday to Saturday 9am to 5pm and Sunday 10am to 4pm. Commissioned sessions are separate from public cafe access, so a visit does not put you in the way of a young person's session.
Arrange a visit, a slot or a training date
Call the 24-hour line and ask for the Studio, or send what you need and we will confirm the work and the charge in writing before anything starts.
TIFA Life is not a CIW-registered children's home or care service. We accept placements only where needs can be safely met within our supported accommodation model.
Sessions, a visit or a training date
Call the 24-hour line, or make a formal referral if you have a young person to place.