the Help Files....
March 2006
The Cathedral Gardens Project was commisioned by the City Centre Management Company to deliver a Peer Youth Worker Project in Cathedral Gardens. £15,000 was provided for 6 months.
Recruitment and training of 8 Peer Youth Workers
April 2006
Residential training weekend in Newcastle for the 8 Peer Youth Workers.
Through this website we were already in touch with young people in a similar space in Newcastle city centre. It was decided to take the new Peer Youth Workers to visit there so that they could get an 'outsiders' look and a different perspective on the issues.
This visit gave a focus for the training, practical tasks included composing a survey to ask young people in Newcastle about the issues they faced, then working as a team to safely conduct and compile the survey. Over 100 responses were received within a coupe of hours and they provided plenty of material for discussion.
April 2006
Peer Youth Workers conduct a survey of young people in Cathedral Gardens.
218 of the 2 page questionnaires were completed over two Saturday afternoons.
May - Oct 2006
Training from other agencies:
42nd Street - Mental Health
LGYM - Gender Issues
Connexions - Communication Skills
VYM - Writing Funding Bids
Manchester Enterprises - 'Breakaway' training in self defence & personal safety
Agony Aunts start offering advice and information through the website.
23 Queries to date
Litter Picks
over 60 volunteers take part through the Summer
"It has proved to be a fun activity for our peers and is beneficial for a number of reasons. I.E, the obvious one, it helps clear up our beloved gardens, and it also shows us in a positive light to anyone who wrongly thinks people don’t care. It has also been an opportunity to inform people about the £80 fines for littering and to advise them they shouldn’t litter on a place they care about. Response to this has generally been things like 'there aren’t enough bins' or 'the bins are always full'."
May - June 2006
Focus Groups organised and hosted to enable Joanne Massey from MMU to research for her paper on Young People, Music & Space.
28 young people engaged to discuss issues for three of the distinct subcultures using Cathedral Gardens: Goths, Emos & Moshers.
Young People in the City Centre Partnership Meetings
The Peer Youth Workers attend these meetings as representatives of young people using Cathedral Gardens.
June-August 2006
People and Outfits photography - this project recorded the creativity of young people's fashions and images on Cathedral Gardens. It also aimed to reduce friction between subcultures by celebrating the diversity and intermingling that happens in this social space.
143 pictures selected for the gallery - 200+ young people engaged, 9 different photographers. In March 2007, a number of these pictures are selected for an exhibition in URBIS itself.
Meetings with URBIS
Halloween planning group
"Thank you
all for coming in on Saturday, we had a great turnout and some good ideas.
Looks like we will be having a haunted house in B2B 1 and some fun games
and stuff happening in the other room. We will then turn the haunted house
room into a party room as it will be dark and already decorated. I do
have the emails of those involved and will be in touch soon in regards
to when we have to decorate and meet up next time. Thanks all!"
- Carolyn, URBIS
from June 2006
Articles & Reviews
22 reviews submitted to date. 10 Ticketmaster vouchers worth £20 each given out as prizes.
Advertising urbanalternatives.org.uk website forums
Suggested and designed by young people, 900 of these badges have been distributed by Peer Youth Workers and volunteers. While the aim of this is to encourage young people to get involved in projects through the website, we accept that many never actually register, but simply use the website as a source of information or advice.
"Perhaps you could make little pin badges as well, with some sort of cool logo and the website address, you could maybe get people to sell them round Urbis - even give them out if you're feeling generous"
-Frankie
"This has been very successful and we have found that the youth of cathedral gardens are very enthusiastic about the site and even more so about helping it."
- Peer Youth Workers
Presentation to Liverpool Peer Educators
The peer youth workers were invited to TATE Gallery Liverpool to give a speech about our project and to help them set up a similar project. Two Peer Youth Workers did a presentation to a group of 22 young people about our project and about our past successes and failures and helped them to understand that not everything will go as planned. We suggested things which may help them with the project and also some training that they may wish to have. The day was very successful in a whole because it allowed us to gain connections with another project, which we assisted in them trying to establish. Also we learned that our project is special because we actually go out to where people are instead of needing for them to come into our building.
Young People in the City Centre Partnership Meeting
"A priority that was discussed was the litter consumed on Cathedral Gardens. Also on the agenda at the meeting was to discuss Saturday 10 June. Photographic evidence was shown of adults drinking alcohol on the Gardens of which the police & Wardens did not seem to be doing anything to stop them. They did not even ask them to move along of which they always ask of the youths who drink on the gardens. We found this unfair and a discrimination against the youths as they are constantly targeted. In addition, when the younger people on the gardens were taking part in a litter pick, certain adults who may or may not have been drinking were hurling verbal abuse at them, making them feel unsafe, uncomfortable and unable to continue picking litter however it was still very successful. Furthermore, youths who were socializing on the gardens also felt intimidated. We were disappointed that the ‘no drinking’ rules were not being enforced on the football fans, especially as a number of young people were challenged about alleged drinking around the Gardens."
Peer Youth Workers
July 2006
Outside@URBIS
stewarding the crowd outside
organising volunteers to interview the bands and photograph the event
collecting the litter twice during the event and then again afterwards.
August 2006
Meeting with Cathedral
Public realm meeting for Cathedral Gardens
The Peer Youth Workers attend this meeting as representatives of young people using Cathedral Gardens.
Website launch party
"It was a mint day!! glad i turned up even though i got lost on way there !!!"
-Chazz
Website Forums get their 250th member, and are used by the Sprout Project and URBIS itself as a channel of communication to the young people in Cathedral Gardens.
Survey #2
As the money for the initial project ran out, the Peer Youth Workers conducted a repeat of tehir initial survey to assess any changes and measure soft outcomes in changed perceptions and awareness among their peers.
some of the answers given:
What would you like
us, as Peer Youth Workers, to do here?
"Just carry on what your doing its ACE :) your all ace :]"
"get me more bins"
"talk to people when they’re upset."
"Keep it a nice social enviroment."
"Just do what you are doing now because it’s great already.
Also through what they do here I don’t drink like what I use to
and I am now quiting smoking… Thanks alot!"
"More activities and keep the friendly youth workers :) Yay! xXx"
How has the behaviour
changed since you’ve been coming here?
"when I first came lots of fights but hardly any now"
"Well before the Peer Youth Workers where here it was violent and
now the violence has gone and everybody nearly knows everone"
"The atmosphere is less antisocial"
statistics from both surveys available here
Peer Youth Workers Appraisal weekend
At the end of teh initial project the Peer Youth Workers had a residential weekend to review progress achieved and lessons learned. This was combined with a trip to a similar young people's space in Birmingham.
“I really enjoyed the job and I liked everyone I worked with and I’m really upset that it’s ended.”
“I know I got a hell of a lot of experience from the job that helps me with normal life as well as work. I also enjoyed the amount of opportunities to talk to people I would otherwise have no reason to talk to, helping them etc.”
CASH Grant application
As well as spreading the word through litter picks, the Peer Youth Workers also talk to young people they see littering, or receiving fines for littering. One of the messages they got back consistently is that there are not enough bins, and the Peer Youth Workers were keen to rectify this. Unfortunately the council have looked into this and maintain that there are enough bins, and that adding further bins would damage the character of the gardens.
The Peer Youth Workers decided that the next best thing they could do on this issue was to try and get cigarette bins installed in the gardens, as many young people are unaware that they will get fined for dropping cigarette butts.
They therefore put in an application for a CASH grant. New bins need to match the existing stock, and so this will be expensive, at £6,000+. However, the bid was successful, and cigarette bins are currently on order!
After Urbis
This event was organised by the SPROUT project, the Peer Youth Workers offered their help and support.
"Shout out to the peer youth workers. Thanks for coming down to AFTER URBIS, supporting it and lending a hand! It was much appreciated"
- Tom, The Sprout Project
Water Bottles
The Peer Youth Workers wanted something practical to help them when engaging young people who were under the influence of alcohol. They came up with the idea of reusable water bottles that would be printed with some simple advice and contact details for Eclypse (Manchester's lead agency for supporting teen drug and alcohol users). Funding was obtained form the Drug and Alcohol Strategy Team at Manchester City Council for 500 units.
These have proven to be popular and useful in several ways:
After people have had a couple of drinks their judgement is impaired and they will continue to consume alcohol even if they had planned to stop. Putting a bottle of water in their hands at this stage gives them the option to switch to water.
When people have consumed too much and are feeling unwell, they are grateful for the water and it gets advice literally into their hands at a time when they may be regretting their over-consumption.
The text on the bottles and the website address are still there when people sober up, whereas verbal advice is likely to be forgotten or blurred in memory. It also serves as a physical reminder that the recipient was visibly drunk enough to be offered water.
The Art Club
7 young people went on drawing trips into URBIS and liverpool Tate galleries. This has been superseded by the 'Day in the Life' and ANSA art projects, but should restart in the Summer.
Numbers for art projects are kept deliberately low as these are intended to be intensive supported opportunities rather than diversionary activities.
Eclypse/FRANK Outreach
