Weekly Update 02.11.20

To bring some cheer to the start of the week, following the bleaker news the weekend brought, last week was really quite an exciting one as our new Youth Work Manager, Alex McSweeney, began with us! Alex will be taking the lead on TRAIN’s youth work delivery and coordinating us as a staff team. He has extensive managerial experience in young people’s services through his background with the Prince’s Trust and Reading FC Community Trust – why we are incredibly excited for him to be joining us!

Alongside the support he will be offering in keeping our current youth work delivery running smoothly, we look forward to hearing about what new ideas he wants to share with us and how we can make the most out of his experiences. Welcome Alex!! You will be hearing a lot more from him over the coming weeks!

Another piece of exciting news is that we have been able to launch another weekly online session in the form of a Virtual Youth Club! Running at 5:30pm Tuesdays, Charlotte is taking the lead on the project, generously funded by Oxfordshire County Council’s Youth Opportunity Fund. So far Charlotte has been busy gathering ideas on what young people would like from the Club and last week running a huge selection of Halloween games and quizzes for young people to enjoy through Instagram. 

Otherwise, half-term and the days leading up to the week has seen the Youth Work team heading out on detached, alongside running further activities through their online sessions including:

• Young Women’s Group – Lucinda has been enjoying continuing Justina’s YWG, following her commencing her maternity leave, to so far offer some brilliant content and quizzes around women’s history and body image and positivity 
• Instagram Polls – we’ve had really great engagement and insightful thoughts on the last few poll topics posted, particularly this week’s one focused on growing young people’s awareness when it comes to what good communication skills are and our own understandings of their views around different aspects of communication. 
• Interactive worksheets – Charlotte put together a great worksheet to offer tips on how to stay safe when out and about over Halloween 
• Spooky Halloween makeup tutorials 

It was also fantastic to watch Oxfordshire Youth’s Youth Awards 2020 live on Wednesday. It was a privilege to be nominated by a parent for the Youth Project Award and we congratulate the incredibly worthy winners Jacari Oxford, alongside all the other wonderful organisations who were nominated. It was really quite an inspiring evening, hearing about the incredible achievements of many 8-21 year olds and seeing the winner’s excitement. Such a special way of celebrating all young people across the county, particularly as they have negotiated the unsettling period it has been. A huge thank you to OY for the hard work put in!  

As we head into the next lockdown, we are going to continue being mindful of how the circumstances will be affecting young people over the coming weeks. Whilst out on Detached sessions, we have seen the clear value many have found in being able to head out and socialise with their friends since restrictions loosening. With them ramping up again, the importance in us regularly keeping in touch with young people virtually will thereby be high, to support them in reducing any unease brought about.

We appreciate this is likely to be a difficult month for all ages and continue to plod through the strangeness of the year together. With young people in mind however, we encourage you to spread the word about TRAIN and our provision. This will support us in reaching out to as many young people in the town as we can, so that all who may particularly benefit from our support and activities know we are here. Updates on our schedule for the weeks going forward will be posted through the following page. Please also take a look at the poster below for the various ways young people can keep connected with us, alongside our general contact details you are always welcome to get in touch with us through.

Otherwise, look after yourselves and each other and we hope the upcoming week brings lots of glimmers of positivity for you all! 

Best wishes, 

The TRAIN Team