Examples Of Community Binding Youth Work
The case studies the National Youth Agency want to share with you are all superb examples of how youth work supports communities.
We asked the sector to provide examples of youth work that works to bring communities together, and we are delighted to be able to give you a brief snapshot of outstanding projects from Salford, Wirral, Worcester, London, North East Lincolnshire and Staffordshire.
Our seven case studies show how they have bridged boundaries, overcome local issues, and in general supported community development. By sharing with you these extraordinary projects, the National Youth Agency hopes that they will inspire, provoke thought, and possibly encourage your support and investment in youth work.
North East Lincolnshire Council’s Young Peoples Support Services.
Youth engagement programme over Halloween and Bonfire period 2008 - 2011
In 2007 it was evidenced that the period between 30th October and 6th November were becoming extremely problematic with:-
- Attacks on operational fire crews responding to emergency calls predominantly by young males
- Youth related Anti Social Behaviour and Criminal Damage
- Primary and secondary fires
At one point the gangs were reporting fires in a malicious fashion in order to assault fire fighters and cause damage to fire appliances. These actions made local, regional and national headlines and caused a negative perception of all young people in North East Lincolnshire.
These actions caused a number of key partners and community members to discuss the issues and respond accordingly. The partners included Humberside Police, Humberside Fire and Rescue, North East Lincolnshire Council’s Young Peoples Support Services (YPSS) and a number of Voluntary and Community Sector agencies. The answer became obvious, to support emergency colleagues by a partnership approach which used enforcement tactics, if required, and a robust and exciting engagement programme of positive activities for all young people during the seasonal period.
Youth crime can be reduced by giving young people something to do and the voice and influence of choosing those activities and how they are delivered.
- Engagement attendances of young people increased from 690 in 2007 to 1307 in 2010 showing an increase of 88%
- Anti Social Behaviour reduced from 217 in 2007 to 102 in 2010 showing a reduction of 53%.
- Criminal Damage reduced from 166 in 2007 to 82 in 2010 showing a reduction of 50%
The key reduction to all of this work was that not a single fire fighter was injured in this year. This reduced from 9 in 2007 to 0 in 2010.
2011 shows the partnership growing and the operation now heavily focusing on more engagement for young people in a massive programme of activities that celebrates National Youth work week. YPSS and its partners are offering street based just dance competitions at a number of locations in youth centres, parks and open spaces with exciting prizes and cage football events with the use of floodlights. These events see community and church groups opening their doors to work in collaboration with young people in an attempt to bring communities together which is fundamentally important for our partnership. The young people within our communities have demonstrated some genuine creativity and skill in bringing these events together. The positive success we have made in making an impact on supporting young people into learning or employment, reduction of youth related crime and supporting active citizenship is excellent for all involved. The youth work week theme resonated with us and we're able to respond for the benefit of our communities.
Salford
After the riots in August at Salford Precinct the council was keen to ensure that young people in the neighbourhood have ready access to after school activities. A series of free football training sessions, lead by Manchester United Foundation coaches, were set up for young people to go to from 6pm to 9pm, using special mobile flood lit ‘football cages’.
The sessions have been a huge hit, with more than 200 young people attending, often along with parents eager to see their child’s football skills honed under the supervision of the Premier League coaches.
Youth workers were on hand to talk to the young people attending and their parents, further building positive relationships and encouraging the teenagers back into community and youth centres. The police have also attended the sessions, building trust and positive relationships between them and the young people.
The football coaches themselves are from Salford, providing excellent role models to the teenagers, showing that there are opportunities open to young people from the city.
St John’s Ambulance Youth Development.
INTRODUCING ASPIRE
Aspire, is the newest addition to St. John Ambulance’s youth department. We are young volunteers aged 16 – 20 years old involved in a 24 week project for 24 hours each week. The project is based in Peckham, Southwark and started in July 2011. The main purpose of the project is to coach young people to teach first aid to other young people – peer education.
In just three months we have passed four courses; young first aider, essential skills in youth work, peer education and working with young people safely. We have also taught first aid awareness sessions in youth clubs and centres as well as creating CV’s, doing interview skills and applying for jobs. At first it was quite scary to teach young people our age but after the first few sessions went well we really started to enjoy it and found rewarding to teach people like us that they can be ;the difference’! In the next few months we are hoping to work with schools and youth offending teams.
At the moment we are organising a social action project, which looks at how young people are represented in society. We feel that young people are getting a lot of negative press and that young people like us who are doing positive things are not recognised enough.
We are very happy to be a part of this project because it prepares us for what we would like to do in the future, also we would like people to look at us and think we are young people doing something positive for a change and for other young people to look at us and say things like “well if they can do it so can I.”
We will complete the project at the end of December and a new group of young people will start in February.
Staffordshire University
Through conversations with local youth workers and students on the MA Community and Youth Work courses delivered by the Creative Communities Unit at Staffordshire University, lecturers Nic Gratton and Pete Twilley started to wonder how they could support youth workers to highlight and promote the amazing work they do. Many youth workers are feeling de-motivated by the effects of spending cuts and threats to services. They are concerned about how these will affect the profession and ultimately, young people. With the impact of the recession affecting young people on a number of levels and the riots in London and in some areas of the West Midlands over the summer, youth work appears to be more important than ever and yet the impact of youth work is still difficult to measure. More than ever, it would seem, the positive impact of youth work needs to be celebrated.
The programme explores the current policy context of youth work and the communities that young people are a part of, providing time to explore and share ideas of how to bring communities together through youth work. The impact of youth work in helping to bring communities together will then be celebrated through sharing experiences and capturing youth worker’s stories. Nic and Pete are working with three Broadcast Journalism students from Staffordshire University who are being invited to film the session and to capture the stories as they unfold. The aim is to produce a short film highlighting the difference that youth work can make in communities. Other methods of recording stories are also being used including live Twitter feeds, word storming and voice recordings. All participants on the workshops will have access to the short film to use a resource for youth work, training or to promote youth work to local communities, partners and other organisations.
Wirral Council’s Youth and Play Service
This work has included youth outreach work and activities offered via the borough’s Youth Hubs and neighbourhood Youth Centres.
In addition, a number of events have taken place throughout the year, taking the youth service into the community. These have included barbecues, sports events, and Wirral’s first ever ‘teenagers only’ music festival held in Vale Park, New Brighton.
On a more serious note, youth workers were praised when they went out and about speaking to young people and dissuading them from travelling to town centres when the summer’s disturbances were at their height.
Working with police officers, youth workers were out in all weathers, travelling on trains, talking to teenagers, and helping to provide a reassuring presence in Birkenhead.
Wirral Youth and Play Service also provided extra ‘diversionary activities’ designed to deter young people from getting involved.
To mark National Youth Work Week, youth workers are recording what young people think about Wirral Youth Services on a DVD and will use their comments to develop the service.
In addition, with Hallowe’en and Bonfire Night around the corner, the Youth and Play Service is currently working with a number of agencies to offer a range of diversionary activities at anti-social behaviour ‘hotspot’ sites across Wirral.
'Little steps mean the world to me ...it's like dropping pebbles in a pool.' So says Margy Ellard who - with 35 years as a youth worker to her credit - is more than entitled to reflect on the rewards of her profession.
Margy, who manages South Wirral Youth Hub, began attending her childhood local youth club, Fender, when she was only nine, returning to work at the same youth centre as a volunteer, and later, as part time youth worker.
Her career has seen many changes but, she says, the needs and pressures that young people feel are essentially the same: 'There are more targets and pressures on youth workers, certainly, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Ofsted and increased monitoring highlights the benefits of positive work by the youth service more, and demonstrates the importance of good outcomes, which raises the profile of the youth service and youth work generally. The same goes for targets - they are often presented in a negative light, but there is no doubt they lead to improvements for the better.'
Margy has worked at many of the youth clubs in Wirral, either as a youth worker or - when she was younger - as a volunteer.
South Wirral Youth Hub is based in a residential area, surrounded by houses, schools and a real mixed demographic. It's also open six nights a week, so she works really hard with the local community and groups such as local churches and the police to help keep relationships happy.
Often young people are brought to the centre by their parents who have heard about the work of the centre through regular neighbourhood meetings that are held as part of the centre's ongoing dialogue with the local community. 'That's what it's all about really, getting the community in here, and helping everyone to appreciate - like we do - how great our young people are, and how important facilities like this are to them and should be for the whole community,' she says.
Youthcomm Worcester
Initially Becky Maynard Youth Worker at Youthcomm thought it would be a good experience for young people to get out of the Youthcomm studio and establish a community event that everyone could enjoy.
The main aim was to put young people at the heart of a community event. Money came originally from the County Council with £1000 of funding.
1000 people attended in year one and now in year three over 4000 people attend.
Minifest is a free community music festival (broadcast live on Youthcomm Radio 106.7FM) that can be enjoyed by the whole community and brings people together in their local park. It aims to put the young people right at the heart of the event and show case the positive contributions they make in their communities.
The success of this event is down to a huge commitment from volunteers, staff, partner organisations and the overwhelming support from the community. The event has been funded by many sources in the past and this enables us to pay for the activities on offer to ensure the event is affordable for all, one of our biggest successes has been to provide an event for the whole community from 0-90yrs with positive feedback from all. All the performers are hugely talented local young people, this past event over 3000 people came and saw, singer song writers, rappers, bands, dancers, and poet laureates a real mixture on past events.
2012 will see the 4th Minifest event taking place on the 23rd June in Cripplegate Park, it has grown from strength to strength and the numbers in attendance show they are meeting a real community need. Each event sees more involvement from the volunteers of Youthcomm Radio who are involved in every aspect of the event planning and decision making.
St John Ambulance - The Rise Project
The Issue
The St John Ambulance RISE project (Respect Inspire Support Empower) launched in August 2009 as an initiative designed by young people for young people living in Newham, Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Waltham Forest, who are affected by knife and gun crime. It particularly focuses on hard to reach young people or those disengaged from mainstream education and training, to teach them basic first aid skills to save lives.
The Solution
First aid is at the centre of the project and is the initial training the young people receive. From our experience we have seen that teaching someone life saving skills is a great motivator; it gives a sense of achievement and increases self confidence. For many participants of the project, receiving this training and a certificate is the first acknowledgment of success that they have had in their lives. The project contributes to stopping young people getting into the repeated downward spiral of failure. Continuing on from the first aid training the project provides BTEC accredited 'Essential Skills in Youth Work' youth leader training. Both first aid and BTEC accredited certification contribute towards a better CV and increase chances to gaining meaningful employment or training.
By mixing this training with support from project staff and volunteers, the young people involved can develop from being disengaged from society to being a qualified youth leader, training and leading young people; thus meeting and sustaining the need for youth leaders from closed and hard to reach communities.
The Results
Successes so far:
* 600 young people trained in first aid
* 50 new youth leaders trained
* Five new Youth units started in East London
* The Project was nominated for a 'Children and Young People Now' Award in the 'Stay safe' category for our peer to peer first aid session called 'Stick-it'. This course has been used as a first taster sessions for the project
* Engagement with approximately 100 young people on a weekly basis
* Partnerships have been built with local communities and key organisations within them, both statutory and third sector
* Young people working on and completing a structured award based programme.
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