the Help Files....
"you
get called all sorts of names at school - personally I get
called lots of things, but you just know that people who come here will
like you
for you as opposed to what you dress like or what music you listen to"
Sounds Like Teenspirit
Research - Joanne Massey
Manchester's Cathedral Gardens are a vibrant, distinctive and much loved meeting place for 'alternative' young people from around Greater Manchester. Depending on the time of year, between 300-900 young people gather in the gardens each Saturday afternoon. Most are 13-16 years old. Many will spend 5 or more hours socialising with their friends and meeting new people. These young people, and others in Manchester, commonly refer to the gardens as 'urbis'.
We
look for ways of marking our transition from one age set to another,
particularly from the status of a child to that of an adult.
To do this, we need a well-defined social identity before we can hope
to achieve a true sense of personal identity.
To be an individual, we first need to be one of the lads – or lasses.
Smells Like Teen Spirit - FRANK
Academic research and a number of detailed surveys have shown that young people come to the Gardens because:
- They belong to 'alternative' subcultures and wish to socialise with others like themselves
- They feel unsafe and face prejudice in the areas where they live
- They enjoy their time in the Gardens and find it rewarding in many ways
- 'urbis' (i.e. Cathedral Gardens) is a unique and crucial space for them
"I
feel safer in town at any time, even on my own, than I would in the day
walking to the shop near my house because I have to walk past my school
and there’s a park opposite and I get, you just get things thrown
at you even if
I’m not dressed particularly alternative in like a t-shirt and jeans"
Sounds
Like Teenspirit - Joanne Massey
82%
of 11-16 year olds find it easy to acquire alcohol
Young People Now & Office of the Children's Commissioner
Evidence
suggests that at least 10% of young people have a diagnosable mental
disorder.
Youth Matters - DfES
Self-harm
among young people is a major public health issue in the UK. It affects
at least one in 15 young people
and some evidence suggests that rates of self-harm in the UK are higher
than anywhere else in Europe.
Truth Hurts - Mental health Foundation
Some of these young people bring problems with them to Cathedral Gardens. Many have significant experience of being bullied, self harming or substance misuse, plus the full range of other issues facing young people today. Often they do not feel safe accessing services where they live, or those services are targeted in a way which alienates them. Outreach work conducted in Cathedral Gardens is recognised by Connexions and other agencies as a valuable opportunity to provide these young people with much needed support.
In most cases young people will benefit from the positive and supportive peer groups on Cathedral Gardens. In other cases the Peer Youth Workers offer advice and information, or make referrals to specialist agencies. The Peer Youth Workers have recently established a Support Group which allows young people to receive advice and information through their peers in a supportive, unthreatening environment which mirrors that of the Gardens.
The Peer Youth Workers have also worked alongside Eclypse (Manchesters specialist drug and alcohol agency for young people) and contributed to research for a national initiative on self-harm.
"Such
spaces should be where children and young people are able to explore,
experiment and try out various physical and emotional possibilities
within wider conditions of respect and security. It is impossible to
design a public realm that is based on the view that all users are in
need of protection from each other: children from adults, and adults
from children"
No Particular Place
to Go - Groundwork
Any project which does not recognise that these young people are busy will invariably fail. While some of these young people will be bored at times, this should be the impetus for them to create their own activities, not an excuse to shoehorn them into diversionary projects. Many of the perceived problems with these young people are temporary symptoms of natural and necessary adolescent development - and this is a valuable space in which to work through them.
The Cathedral Gardens Project aims to provide a guiding hand and a sympathetic ear for when problems arise to do with inter-group conflict, experimentation with relationships or the temptations of substance abuse. We also work hard to ensure young people can realise their own ideas, supporting them to create events and activities that they want in a way that benefits them, their peers and the wider community.
"the
government’s Neighbourhood Renewal Unit has now instigated three
different programmes
for street cleanliness and safety involving paid staff:
Neighbourhood Wardens, Street Wardens and Street Crime Wardens.
In its description of the key tasks of each kind of warden,
once again the words ‘children’ or ‘play’ are
simply not mentioned
....One might be tempted to think that such initiatives not only want
to clean the streets of litter,
but of young people as well."
No Particular Place to Go - Groundwork
While the Cathedral Gardens Project has influenced scores of these young people to volunteer their time picking litter, we also recognise that the young people have a valid point when they say that there are an inadequate number of litter bins and that the specific targeting of children by Street Wardens is entirely inappropriate for the following reasons:
-
Existing bins are regularly full
-
Littering has decreased dramatically since the start of the volunteer litter picks
-
Adults (or even large groups of 'scallies') littering or drinking alcohol in Cathedral Gardens are regularly ignored or let off by the Wardens
-
Many of these young people come to Cathedral Gardens because of uncontrolled levels of crime and disorder where they live. For them then to be targeted in this way is clearly unfair and has given many of them negative perceptions of law enforcement agencies
-
Young people do not litter maliciously. They are at a time in their lives where it is natural to be pre-occupied with social and personal engagements, as is evidenced by the difficulty of getting teenagers to clean their bedrooms!
Yet
the actual damage caused by skateboarding is overstated – very
little damage occurs to benches and ledges,
particularly if they are designed to withstand skateboarding rather
than to repel it.
And I have yet to find a single example of a skateboarder actually colliding
with a pedestrian
– this surely does happen, but compared to, for instance, the
thousands of pedestrians killed by motorised traffic,
as well as all the other problems created by cars, this is not an insuperable
problem.
What are we scared of? - CABE
Similarly, while the project's Peer Youth Workers have engaged dozens of skaters and informed them of the by-law banning this activity, we also accept that there are strong arguments againts the ban on this activity.
-
skateboarding is a healthy, affordable outdoor activity with additional social benefits. It also encourages young people to explore the urban environment
-
skateboarding is safe, and in our experience skateboarders are considerate towards other users of the space.
-
Young people perceive this as a ban on what is primarily a 'youth' activity
-
Patchy enforcement of this unpopular by-law leads to many young people breaking the ban. This leads to young people becoming criminalised and having less respect for the law
-
The layout of the South West corner of the gardens, and the use of tough alta-quartzite stone, clearly indicate to young people that this area was designed for skateboarding. The Youth Contact Team have confirmed this
-
The Projekts skatepark in the cage under the Mancunian way is in an area seen as unsafe by many young people, and was not designed in consultation with local skaters. It lacks street skating elements and, crucially, social space
The lack of shelter or toilets in the area around Cathedral Gardens is also a longstanding problem which leads to friction with surrounding businesses. Since the introduction of a 20p charge in the Triangle, many young people have shifted to using the toilets in the URBIS building. This has led to a number of complaints from URBIS management, who are now considering reintroducing the ban on unaccomapnied minors entering the buidling.
We believe that there are positive ways to resolve all of these issues, many of which are backed up by considerable research, government recommendations and established best practice. Indeed, even the Respect Action Plan says that:
In
order to create a culture of respect, we need to provide opportunities
and support
to children and young people and to challenge bad behaviour as it occurs.
Many of us have
needed support and guidance to help turn our lives around
-every
child must have that and it is our duty to provide it.
Respect Action Plan - Home Office
In this context, issuing fines to young people is not challenging or changing their behaviour, the real challenge is to generate agreement on standards between the users of the space and those who control it.
