Conscious Colossus

Introducing YGAM: Informing, educating and safeguarding young people against problematic gambling

Who are YGAM?

YGAM, or the Young Gamers & Gamblers Education Trust, are a UK-registered charity with ‘a social purpose to inform, educate and safeguard young people against problematic gambling and social gaming’.

They were founded by Lee Willows, a former Director and Chief Executive in the Third and Education sectors, as a response to him developing a short but devestating gambling addiction in 2012.

What do they do?

YGAM deliver the UK’s first accredited and quality-assured gambling awareness education programme.

They run ‘train the trainer’ workshops which deliver accredited training to a wide range of persons in responsible positions such as teachers, youth workers, community mental health colleagues, prison and probation colleagues and community volunteers, thus enabling them to deliver the YGAM gambling-related harm-prevention programme.

Additionally they work alongside universities to train students to become ‘YGAM peer members’, who themselves are employed part-time to deliver a range of gambling-related harm prevention programmes and awareness campaigns within their universities and local communities.

Furthermore, through the delivery of the training workshops and education projects, YGAM conduct research into the attitudes, thinking and behaviours of young people who take part in gambling or social gaming in order to establish a global research network targeting teenagers and young adults.

For more information, please click here.

Why have we chosen to support them?

There is currently much public focus on gambling addiction and what gambling providers should do to address the issue. At Colossus, we feel it is equally important to engage on the prevention front by supporting responsible gambling education, particularly for young people. YGAM takes a very holistic approach to this objective, from engaging and training the educators to tapping into peer-to-peer mentor networks.

What is Conscious Colossus?

Conscious Colossus is a charitable initiative designed to target several areas of responsibility and covering a wide range of causes, including the advancement of sport within communities, responsible gambling education and animal welfare. Our nominated charities are Alive and Kicking, the Greyhound Trust and YGAM. Conscious Colossus commits to support these charities through funding, team volunteer days, fundraisers as well as raising awareness of their objectives through our own channels.