Weekly Update – 13/01/2020

Dear all,

Happy New Year and we hope you all had brilliant Christmas’s. We kicked off 2020 with a busy but very positive week jumping back in to our provision, following staff taking a well deserved rest over the Christmas period. This included:

• Young Women’s Group – young women who came along engaged very well in a session looking at the differences between banter and bullying, including the consequences of each and importance of building others up.
• Young Men’s Group – the session’s topic of healthy relationships online led to the young men initiating conversations around online porn. A report commissioned by the NSPCC offers concrete evidence proving that children and young people are at risk of becoming ‘desensitised’ to online porn. Discussing the topic in more detail was therefore very positive for enhancing their understandings of the effects watching porn can have.
• Detached and Outreach – staff engaged with young people around the town during usual afternoons and evenings, including dropping into Burger King to discourage ASB. As usual interactions supported staff in building relationships with young people and in keeping us aware of any matters effecting them.
• Dinner and Debate – it was great to welcome new young people to the sessions, alongside many already known to us, this week held around healthy relationships online.
• Head Start – Week 1 of the second 2 groups we are running the 6 week programme with, following a very successful first two programmes we ran before Christmas. This month sees us delivering the sessions in Mental Health and Wellbeing with new young people at All Saints and Willowcroft Primary Schools. All young people responded very well to Week 1’s sessions, being eager to listen and learn what the coming few weeks will have in store. It was great to receive positive feedback from teachers and parents after and we can’t wait to see how they come to grow and benefit from the programme over the coming weeks.
• What’s Up – a number of young people attended the first group mentoring session to be delivered of Lisa’s What’s Up project, she is delivering as part of her Youth Work course at Ruskin College with fellow students Zane and Will. The plan is to use games each week to explore critical thinking and problem solving amongst those who attend.

Looking forward to Week 2 of the year and as always get in touch if you have any questions or ideas for us! Look out for monthly newsletter and in the meantime if you have any questions for us feel free to email us give us a call on 07305042427.