Young people: risks, control and growth

I think being a parent myself is a great asset to my job. I understand how difficult it is to be a parent myself, how you long to do the best thing for your kids, but so often its not obvious what the best thing is. How quickly or slowly to let go, to enable your child to learn for themselves, rather than be protected and told what to do? You also long to control the environment your child is in as much you can, to nurture and support, but lots of things are out of your control.

An example that my husband and I have faced recently. Due to circumstances beyond our control, our daughter has just started at a school at some distance to our son's school. Both schools are within walking distance of our home, but it is not possible to do the school run to both schools on foot given the start and finish times. So, we were faced with the choice: school run in the car - creating pollution, congestion and missing out on exercise - or school run on foot, letting our ten year old walk a mile to school by himself, crossing several roads which at school times get quite busy. As you may know, there is evidence that kids who walk to school perform better. So, we have opted to let him walk to school and I have alerted my mums network to let me know if anyone spots any concerns about his road crossing behaviour!

For now, the decision feels good. It is healthier and he is learning independence. But will I feel guilty and irresponsible if he has an accident? 

Organisations working with young people, face the same issues as a parent. How much can they and should they control the environment? How much risk should they let the young people take?

There is evidence that young people naturally take more risks, it's hard wired into their brains. Ben Byrne from Surrey CC will be talking about this at our Safeguarding Conference on 12th November. If you haven't already booked a ticket, book now, thanks to funding from Surrey CC, we have extended the number of places at  the conference, but still only have a few places left.

Communilab in action

As hopefully you have heard by now, we are in the middle of setting up a great new Community...called Communilab. It is bringing together charities, businesses, public sector agencies, schools and universities to solve problems and create opportunities for young people in Surrey. Communilab Community interacts both off-line (meetings, etc) and online at www.communilab.org. Two examples of collaboration...

Youth work on the pitch started on Friday night in Park Barn, Guildford. It is based on the Leatherhead Youth Project model of organising regular football sessions and having youth workers alongside to build relationships with young people, especially the ones most in need of a supportive adult relationship. The Guildford sessions have resulted from a collaboration of a number of organisations including Guildford Saints Football club providing the coaches, Guildford Borough Council providing the pitch, Lifetrain providing the youth workers, Kings College and Surrey CC youth worker marketing to young people, Surrey CC youth worker promoting, funding from the High Sheriff Youth Awards (looking for more though in case you know of any sources...), Active Surrey and Surrey FA providing guidance and kit, etc.The initial session on Friday night had 14 lads, a good start and a sign that this project is much needed in the area.

I am, sadly, only talking about boys football at the moment. As a former footballer myself, I am hoping that they might get some girls football going too.  (Personal plea - I would still like to find regular 5-aside women's football in the Guildford/Godalming area. I don't have time to train or play 11-aside at weekends, but would love a quick one hour game an evening a week).

The second example of collaboration is Surrey County Council's volunteering programme. Surrey CC are keen to promote volunteering in the county and are leading by example, encouraging their own staff to volunteer. Their staff volunteer offers are being put on Communilab, for charities to see and take up. To see these opportunities you would need to join the Communilab Community. If you are a charity wanting access to Communilab... for members of Surrey Youth Focus then access to Communilab is provided as a part of your subscription, contact the team for your login. If not, join SYF to gain access to Communilab. If you are a business, public sector agency, school or university wanting access to Communilab then contact us now on communilab@surreyyouthfocus.org.uk

Bold new futures

Three of us in the office have had our youngest child start school this September. Generally things are going well, us mothers are adapting to seeing our little ones off to school (and the kids are doing too badly either!)

On the first day, a few weeks ago, one of my colleagues had a lovely experience as she walked her youngest to school on the first day. Along the streets approaching the school, on the pavement in chalk were encouraging words...

Dream big
Be yourself
You're a star
You rock kid
Have a great day
Here is where your journey begins...

How nice to have lovely encouraging words, we could all do with a few of those in our working lives too I think.

On another subject, places at our Safeguarding Conference are going like hotcakes... much faster than expected. We are going to see if we can make some more places available, but in the meantime book today if you want to be sure of a place!

Let young people play their part

Sorry for the gap in blog posts. One of my strengths (and weaknesses) is my passion for my job... I sometimes get involved in too many things at once!

It was our AGM this week and the undoubted stars of the show were the young people from Surrey Heath Youth Council who presented on the great practical work that they have done around preventing use of "legal highs" and anti-bullying.

I frequently go to meetings full of professionals (very often with not a single young person in sight) where issues such as self-harm, legal highs, mental health and bullying are discussed. The solutions that are come up with are generally the same... leaflets, messages via the professionals, a website etc.

Who are young people more likely to listen to? An old fogey like me rattling on about an issue on which I have no personal experience or a young person who may have directly experienced the issue or had a sibling or friend who has? I strongly believe that we should be turning to young people across the county to help with these issues. There are many young people who want to.

Often what is needed is not much more than the salary of a good youth worker to support young people in their work. The Citizenship Foundation ran a great session for us at a local school, where the young people were passionate about supporting their peers through issues. It was the kids who have had the tougher times in life, often from poorer backgrounds, who were the most engaged in the process. The Citizenship Foundation can come in and deliver, or alternatively train up local youth workers on their workshop materials.

Surely in these times of austerity it also makes economic sense? I am now looking for evidence that will prove (or disprove) my theory that it makes the best social and economic sense to create the conditions and support structures across the county so that many of these thorny societal issues affecting young people are being addressed primarily by youth-led initiatives. If you can supply any evidence either way I would be very grateful...

A Plea to Funders

I said that I was off for two weeks, but having taken an interest in all of the articles around Kids Company, I need to get something off my chest before I go.

It seems to me that the high level summary is about Kids Company is:

A long term successful charity needs Good delivery PLUS Good Fundraising PLUS Good Governance PLUS Good administrative systems.

The general media consensus seems to be that Kids Company made a fantastic difference to lots of young people's lives, although there were some practices ("pocket money" allegedly spent on drugs) which have attracted criticism. They also had fantastic fundraising capabilities.

The jury still seems to be out on the governance, the trustees are largely keeping quiet, presumably following due process for directors of a company that is insolvent, we don't yet know what was going on behind the scenes. What it certainly lacked was good financial and administrative systems - monitoring and evaluation of its' work, tracking its' finances, keeping a sensible level of reserves. There seems to have been a mantra that all money should be spent on the kids, not on administrative functions.

Funders are most usually willing to pay for Good delivery. But very often, they are not willing to pay for the other stuff - governance and administration. However, the Kids Company example proves that just being excellent at delivery is not enough. Every sensible funder should understand that a certain amount of money spent on administration is a good thing, not a bad thing. My plea to funders - please bear that in mind when funding charities!

International Youth Day - 12th August

I was asked by the Cabinet office last week if we could provide examples of young people having a positive impact on their communities and working hard to get on so they can be celebrated as part of international youth day this week.

Whilst I know that there are lots of fabulous young people in Surrey doing this stuff, I was concerned about whether the right people would be around in Youth Organisations in mid-August to answer the call. However, many of you are hard at work at your desks (or checking your emails on holiday – naughty!) and our members have done us proud… there have been a flurry of responses. Just a few:

• Skillway nominated Josh Taylor – check out his website 
• Eikon’s (@eikoncharity) Youth Development Board have been working hard feeding back to trustees and organising an awards evening.
• Through YMCA East Surrey’s extensive volunteer and employability programme, called ‘Get Involved’, young people have been gaining work experience and qualifications with a view to finding future employment. Well done especially to the volunteers of the month – Frankie, Abbi and Sam.
• Epsom Phab we have a fantastic group of young volunteers who dedicate hours of their time to ensuring a wide range of activities are provided for the children with and without disabilities  at our club.

Do encourage any young people you are working with to tweet on the day (August 12) using the #aimhigh or #YouthDay.

Also, do use this to publicise opportunities that you have for young people.

Just to give you some ideas about what you might like to tweet about:

• Joe Bloggs from Surrey started her own social enterprise at 20. Could you do the same? #AimHigh (including a picture with with hashtag)
• Under 25 and have a business idea? Here's how to start (include link and hashtag)
• Girlguiding gave me the opportunity to make a real difference to my local community #AimHigh
• Could you be a volunteer and make a difference? Include hashtag and weblink

I’m off on holiday for the next two weeks, so there’ll be a two week gap in my blog as I am away with hubby and kids to cycle in South Wales for a week after which I will hopefully be relaxed enough to be able to sit still on a beach in Cornwall for a week. See you in September.

Forgetting the past

Sometimes it's good to remember and learn from the past (as individuals and nations). However, who out of us doesn't have something they would rather forget? Furthermore, who out of us doesn't have something we would rather the world couldn't find out about for the next ten, twenty, fifty years... that photo of me with a perm that I thought was so cool in the eighties...

Unfortunately the way that it has become the social norm for young people to live their lives online these days, their youthful indiscretions will often be exhibited or talked about online for all to see.

An interesting campaign called iRights has been launched to allow children to delete their online past.

I am not sure how this would work in practice, but it's certainly an interesting idea. I am wondering whether there are any downsides (other than the logistics of achieving this), I can't immediately think of them. I would be interested to hear some experts discuss this!