The National Youth Agency - Lambton Street Fellowship Centre

Lambton Street Fellowship Centre

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

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Case study date: December 2007

Local authority in which project based: Sunderland City Council

Date started: 2007

End date if not ongoing:

Type of organisation: Voluntary youth organisation

Brief description

Situated in Sunderland, the Lambton Street Fellowship Centre has provided a broad menu of youth work opportunities for young people since it was established in 1901. In 2002, the project moved to a purpose-built centre where facilities include a computer suite, large sports hall, fully equipped boxing gym, and fitness suite. The centre supports over 2,000 young people a year and specialises in combining youth work with health and sport related activities. Young people have access to a wide range of sports, including football, trampolining, basketball, fishing and combat sports such as boxing, karate, judo, and aikido. Projects include Positive Activities for Young People, a girls’ health and lifestyle project, targeted work with young people with disabilities to enhance their employment prospects, and the U-project, which works with marginalised young people.

In 2006, Lambton Street made a successful application to v and received funding to develop part-time volunteering opportunities for young people.

Collaboration

Partners include Sunderland City Council which commissions activities at the centre, Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust, Sunderland Voluntary Sector Youth Forum, probation services, Sunderland Youth Development Group, Springboard Training, and Connexions Tyne and Wear.

Funding

The centre receives funding from a variety of sources including Sunderland City Council, Lloyds TSB Foundation, v, and Children in Need.

Staffing

The centre has ten full and part time staff, including a project co-ordinator and v funded education co-ordinator plus seventeen (adult) volunteers.

NATURE OF PROVISION

Which groups of young people does the project work with?

To date, 26 young people have been involved in the v funded Young Volunteers programme. These are mainly white young people, aged from 11 to 25, with a male-female ratio of 70:30. Around a third of the volunteers have special educational needs or another form of disability, and many are vulnerable and have behavioural issues. The project has recently started to engage with young people from the local Philippino community.

How was the need for the project identified?

Young people have been able to volunteer on a piecemeal basis at the centre for a number of years. A growing number of young people wanted to get involved in this but the centre identified that they didn’t have the resources to offer the support the young people would require. With the announcement of v funding, the centre submitted an application.

How do young people become involved? What, if any, commitment do you ask for?

While a few young people are recruited through the local volunteer bureau, most are initially involved in the centre as service users. Many are drawn into volunteering because of existing volunteers. The centre also has a display board with leaflets and posters promoting volunteering and regularly talks to service users about its value. Many of the young people want to know what they can gain from volunteering on a personal basis so staff are keen to stress the benefits – both short and long term – that volunteering can provide.

Most young people volunteer for a few hours a week over an extended period.

What are the main approaches used and activities offered?

Young volunteers are mainly involved in running the centre or delivering sports provision to other young people. Administrative tasks include running the coffee bar, working on reception, office work, and collecting subscriptions from members. Sport specific volunteering opportunities include helping qualified instructors teach one or more sports, preparing kit, and involvement in events and competitions.

The programme is managed by a v funded co-ordinator who supports the young people on an individual basis, working alongside the youth workers and coaches at the centre. The co-ordinator conducts an initial induction with all new volunteers, supplemented by an ongoing training programme covering areas such as anti-discriminatory practice, child protection, and racism. All young people who wish to do sports specific volunteering are then matched with a mentor who develops their sports and coaching skills. The mentors provide regular feedback to the co-ordinator on each young person’s progress. Within the group of volunteers, there is also informal peer mentoring support to newcomers. As well as regular informal contact, the co-ordinator has monthly supervisions with the young people where they review their volunteering experiences and their plans for the future.

As well as the formal support given to young volunteers, the co-ordinator also provides support tailored to their individual needs. Many of the young people have complex and multiple needs, including difficult home lives, and have other demands on their time apart from volunteering. The co-ordinator will do whatever she can to facilitate their volunteering, including calling them at home, helping them access public transport, and liaising with parents or carers.

How are young people involved in shaping the programme?

All young people are actively encouraged to be involved in planning programmes. The centre has a youth committee panel made up of young volunteers representing different activities and sports. The volunteers act as a link between their peers and the centre’s management structures. Through the committee, young people also have an opportunity to represent the centre at external events, including visiting other local projects as youth inspectors for Sunderland’s Youth Development Group.

How does the project respond to the needs of different young people, particularly the most marginalised?

Although it is a city-wide project, the centre is situated in and used by many young people from the inner city wards of Ford and Pallion. The area, which is the top ten per cent of deprived areas nationally, has no green spaces and few facilities other than the centre, and many families live below the poverty line. The project is able to meet the needs of marginalised young people through the high levels of support the v funded co-coordinator can offer.

OUTCOMES OF WORK

How does the project contribute to the five Every Child Matters outcomes for young people?

Young people are encouraged to adopt healthy lifestyles and become physically healthy through their involvement in activities. Young volunteers become more ready for employment through the work-based skills they develop (see section below).

What skills do young people gain through their involvement in the project?

Young people from the volunteering project were recently interviewed as part of a research project on skills development by The National Youth Agency on behalf of the then Department for Education and Skills. As part of this, young volunteers were asked to articulate:

what skills they had gained: working with others and teamwork were cited as the most common skills gained, with others including “coaching skills”, “communication skills”, “confidence”, “assertiveness”, “how to deal with people with disabilities.”
changes to their attitudes and beliefs: “more confident to participate in group activities”, “more mature and can take more responsibility”, “become happier with my level of communication”, “more open to individual differences”, “more polite”, “more patience”, “more self belief.”
what knowledge that they had gained: “how to work a database”, “how to produce a newsletter”, “how to share knowledge of a sport with beginners and peers”, “how to make phone calls”, “interview skills”, “how to create a CV.”

How are young people's progress and achievements measured and recorded?

Accreditation is seen as important to the young volunteers at the centre: “it’s good you’re being rewarded”. The main form of accreditation used is the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award as its focus on sport and fitness and community service is closely aligned with the centre’s ethos. Many young volunteers also go on to take sports specific coaching qualifications. They also gain internal certificates on completion of in-house training courses and workshops.

What has changed for other young people, organisations or the wider community as a result of the project?

The volunteering programme has created a strong sense of ownership within the centre. Before the co-ordinated programme began, there was the occasional theft of items from the coffee bar. Now that a team of young volunteers works in the café and is involved in its stock management, the losses have stopped.

MEASURING EFFECTIVENESS

How is the project evaluated and by whom? As part of its funding arrangements, the project co-ordinator submits regular reports to v highlighting young people’s progress and achievements.

What are the findings of any evaluations to date?

Feedback from young people shows that they enjoy their volunteering and value the skills and knowledge they gain.

Individual case studies also show the effectiveness of the work:

X was 14 years old when he became involved in the project. He is autistic and has other learning difficulties and was in regular trouble at school. He initially came to the club to attend a youth club for young people with disabilities and play snooker and football, before progressing to becoming a befriender for new members of the youth club. Since joining the v funded programme, he has taken on busy reception duties, runs the tuck shop – including training newcomers, and recently organised a group of young people to put up the centre’s Christmas decorations (unbeknown to the staff). He is now doing well at school and is a role model for other young people.

What changes/developments have occurred as a result of evaluation?

Through their supervision sessions, the young volunteers identified that the centre’s meeting room was too small. They subsequently submitted an application and secured funding through the Youth Capital Fund to extend the current accommodation.

What has worked well and why?

The v funded co-ordinating role has been instrumental in the success of the scheme. The use of sport as a medium to engage young people into volunteering has also been successful.

What has been difficult and why?

A lot of the young volunteers support sessions that take place on a time-tabled basis. Because many of them have chaotic lives, they are sometimes unable to meet their commitments. The co-ordinator has done a lot of work around encouraging them to report any absences in advance and having shared ownership of tasks.

PARTNERSHIP AND STRATEGIC IMPACT

What other agencies do you work with?

The centre is part of the Sunderland Voluntary Sector Youth Forum, which brings together staff from voluntary youth work projects to share information and access support.

What does your project bring to partnership work?

The centre has extensive experience of combining youth work with sport and physical activities, and in using volunteering to re-engage marginalised young people.

Has this partnership resulted in greater collaboration?

The forum ensures that the youth sector works in a coordinated way and avoids duplication of activities. Members can also draw on each other’s expertise in working with specific groups of young people, eg Asian young women or young carers.

Do you consider this project to be innovative?

The centre has had considerable success in engaging hard to reach young people through volunteering and health and sports programmes.

How do you disseminate the learning from the project?

The co-ordinator has worked hard to change the opinions of the local community and press about young people. Through sheer persistence, she has established a relationship with the Sunderland Echo and the local radio station which now regularly run positive stories about local young people and their achievements.

Has the learning from this work influenced wider organisational strategies?

Through the volunteering programme, young people have become more actively involved in all areas of the centre’s work, including at management level.

What plans do you have to sustain/develop this work?

In the next year, the centre will focus on securing future funding for the co-ordinator role.

CONTACT DETAILS

Kevin Howard, Lambton Street Fellowship Centre, 25 Falkland Road, Sunderland SR4 6XA. Tel: 0191 567 5227 Email: youth.lambtonstreet@btinternet.com