Youth Work

I felt I wasn't heard I wouldn't say I was happy in general things were a bit Rocky with me I've always tried to stay away from that I don't like gangs and see people my age they're not on the right path I didn't feel wanted I didn't feel like I had a place to be I was running away getting called by the police my mental health wasn't really good because I felt like no one really cared about me no one wanted me and I just wanted that acceptance and it got to a point that I felt like I had enough I was diagnosed with uh spinal cord injury it was during coid as well so it's pretty lonely youth work can be can be so many things it could be uh a women's empowerment group it could be a chess club it could be so many different things it's just what the young people need and that can take place anywhere when we go to a youth club very rarely you see someone upset or sad if they are then somebody's always there with them that's the main thing I see everybody smiling laughing having fun we do a lot of amazing activities with lot of young people but for me it's more about the conversations you have with young people than the activities themselves I've had health complications all my life they ran every test under the book you know I was in and out of my bed for ages until they finally diagnosed me which was kind of a a relief to finally know what was going on but the fact that they said that it's for life that was a big kind of shock to me all you see in hospital is vulnerability you have to be quite mentally resilient to deal with changes to maybe like your medication or changes to your health if you you've got to be part of the NHS for your whole life in most of these young people's cases actually there's not much room in the medical model for you to deviate from that if if life gets in the way which it obviously so often [Music] does detach youth work is literally going to where young people are we'll go to parks and areas you know maybe some hot spots there been a few issues and we just talk to young people we don't know talk to a group of six young people and one might say been kicked out of school for example and it's about all right what can you do to get yourself back into school what support do you need you know do you know there's a youth club around the corner that might be able to help through that as [Music] well I think for the young people who are part of our local schools not just Oasis schools it's chance to come here and have a different approach to education I think enables young people to understand more about life more about themselves when where their purpose and their value is coming from through working with animals in a natural environment within the inner city so I was assigned with a mentor called Allison and it was signed by student and it really really helped me one thing that never really happened to me was she actually listened to what I had to say and my feelings and how I felt you know when we work with young people we trauma informed we're looking at things from their perspective how might they see the world how they need to be understood we devise a bespoke package of how we can provide them that support and what they need to achieve those goals so for me you know it's not just clocking out at 5:00 it's about how can I actually make a lasting impact to that young person's life there has to be an element of social value what we do we put him back in the community and we've got a a strong track record of developing young people so there's there was one time where I commun on a couple of my friends who by The Hub all sat around the bench and we'll speak about Mental Health we were talking about coping mechanisms like how to deal with it like how it comes in the form of I've taken those skills on and I've like developed even better cook mechanisms this works really well when it's in Partnership we try and create an ecosystem approach around the young people and their families they support you whilst you're in the hospital they support you whilst you're outside of it they support you as you're at the youth club or when you're just recovering you you know that whatever you do and you choose to do they will be there to help they teach you all these skills like u 10 management teamwork you know the positive impact of the of it and I'm going back College on September which is this coming month start a fresh you know I say it's it's a new beginning before I felt lost and felt like I didn't have anywhere to go compared to now I feel like I have somewhere to go I probably the happiest I've been for ages and I can feel like myself again I learned a lot of things about myself in general I learned that life's moving on quite fast and if I still have that same attitude I think I said had in year seven eight year N I don't think I'd be able to grow and evolve properly in the right way he was a young person on a project then became a volunteer working with those young people and then in the last year or so he's actually come on to payroll we like to grow our own young people I'm really looking forward to my future because Aki has given me that boost a big part of the youth work is not just about the youth it's about the growing up they've just been able to steer me in the right direction of growing and maturing and becoming a better [Music]