Welcome to the Joseph Trust

The Joseph Trust is a charity that supports young people in York and the surrounding area who are struggling with mainstream school. Our young students range from those who have been excluded, or are at risk of being excluded, to those with specific educational or mental health needs. Our beautiful site based on a farm near the Pocklington Canal with woods, open land and small animals provides an environment suitable for both calm reflective activities and more energetic adventurous one.

We encourage our students to engage with each other and the natural world around us in a fun, adventurous way where they build self-esteem, confidence, resilience and social skills, and take appropriate risks through a varied program of activities. Students get a chance to care for our small animals, learn new skills in an outdoor environment, and work through challenges together, whether it’s constructing a bivouac, fixing a bike or canoeing on the canal. 

We offer a range of indoor and outdoor activities and challenges such as constructing bivouacs, fire-lighting, making apple juice and, in the summer months, canoeing on the Pocklington Canal. We teach practical skills with our bike workshop – each student can choose one of our donated bikes and learn how to maintain it.

We have also developed our kitchen area, teaching essential life skills. Through all of these we aim to set challenges, develop new skills, encourage cooperation and social skills, build self-esteem.

Underpinning our culture is our Christian ethos. We focus on building positive relationships with our young students, persevering through incidents of challenging behaviour and never giving up on students. We encourage and support our students to learn new skills, test themselves in new situations and build their confidence.

The Joseph Trust takes its name from Joseph in the bible, the young man with the multi-coloured dreamcoat, who was rejected by his family and experienced imprisonment, yet whose life was turned around to become the most senior advisor to Pharoah.

First registered as a charity in 2005, we initially worked alongside young offenders and those excluded from or simply not attending school, providing vocational skills and training. Our focus has shifted more and more towards those younger students in Primary and Secondary schools who need support to re-engage with school.