Weekly Update – 28/04/2020
We hope you are all keeping well and were all able to enjoy the nice weather last week, even if just for your daily exercise outing.
TRAINwise we have been continuing to experiment with a range of activities for young people through social media, aiming to offer something for everyone! Our regular sessions and ‘virtual hangouts’ over last week included:
– Participation – thank you to all the young people who shared their thoughts and votes for potential themes for the new website being built behind the scenes for TRAIN!
– An art competition run for Earth Day, which it has been brilliant to have entries coming in for – raising awareness of the day’s important message of caring for our planet and the simple ways we can do so.
– Instagram poll’s were posted for Lunch & Debate sessions to spark conversations around a number of controversial topics (e.g. should animal testing be banned? Is social media a positive thing?). We received really positive engagement for these, with young people voting and posting their thoughts. Being anonymous, the polls offer the good opportunity for those who are perhaps usually less confident opening up before others to do so.
– Young Men’s Group had a very successful gaming session, a number of young people tuning in and enjoying the hour.
– More Kahoots quizzes – including one challenging young people on their citizenship knowledge!
In addition, we continued check-ins in with young people on a one to one basis to check they are doing ok throughout the lockdown period, as well as continuing our weekly structured sessions with those engaged on our one to one mentoring programmes. As we have a number of FREE spaces available for the programme, if you are aware of a young person who this may benefit, further information can be found on our Mentoring page. We welcome referrals from professionals and parents as well as young people themselves.
Another very exciting notice is that we are now opening up our provision to 11-18 year olds from Harwell as well as Didcot (or attending a Didcot school), so we welcome you to spread the word!
It was also a pleasure to be invited onto Radio Oxford’s Breakfast Show last Thursday ahead of Children in Need and Comic Relief’s Big Night In BBC 1. Justina has a great chat with Jerome Sale about CiN’s fantastic support in funding a number of TRAIN’s sessions, alongside various ways of supporting us. For a listen back head to http://bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p088w8jh… and scroll to 2:42. TRAIN’s Chair Brian will also be speaking on the Kat Orman show this Thursday morning if you would like a listen!
To see our timetable for the week ahead please head to our @DidcotTRAIN Facebook page and feel free to get in touch if you have any questions for us, or wish to be added to our mailing list for reminders of our Weekly Updates and/or monthly newsletters.
Thank you for reading and take care.
Best wishes,
The TRAIN Team
