Reckless young people?

I have heard a number of statistics about the current generation of young people smoking less and drinking less than previous generations. Here's a great story to back up the statistics:

The school council at Eythorne Elvington Community Primary School in Dover raised the issue of smoking by parents at the school gates, leading to the head asking parents to improve their behaviour in the school newsletter.

Go, kids, go! Let's get these kids sorting out world peace, too, I'm sure they can do a better job than our generation.

The social and economic cost of mental health

Sitting in the office alone on a very grey Monday morning, I am reading some very depressing statistics:

• One in 10 children has a mental health problem at any one time.
• More than a fifth of children referred to mental health services in England have been refused treatment.
• Only one in 10 prisoners has no mental health disorder.

Aside from the human misery of all this, how much money do we spend on the justice system and keeping people in prison? How much is lost by our economy on families supporting people with mental health issues?

The methodical researchers over at Public Health Surrey who are passionate about improving people's health have told me that a proven way of preventing mental health related issues such as self-harm, taking legal highs, etc, is to build resilience in young people. To expand the idea further, I thought I would take a quick look on the internet for a definition (thanks to Wikipedia....)

"Psychological resilience is defined as an individual's ability to properly adapt to stress and adversity. Stress and adversity can come in the shape of family or relationship problems, health problems, or workplace and financial worries, among others. Resilience is not a rare ability; in reality, it is found in the average individual and it can be learned and developed by virtually anyone. Resilience should be considered a process, rather than a trait to be had.

A common misapprehension is that resilient people are free from negative emotions or thoughts, remaining optimistic in most or all situations. To the contrary, resilient individuals have, through time, developed coping techniques that allow them to effectively and relatively easily navigate around or through crises. In other words, people who demonstrate resilience are people with optimistic attitude and positive emotionality and are, by practice, able to effectively balance negative emotions with positive ones.^"

This is a key area where all of the wonderful youth organisations across Surrey make a significant contribution to all of the young people that they work with. 

We strongly believe in Youth Social Action as a way of giving young people a sense of agency, and hence self-esteem and resilience. 

We would be interested to hear more of your stories/anecdotes/comments about building resilience in young people...

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!