the Help Files....

Support Group

The Support Group started as the Peer Youth Workers identified the need to provide advice and information to the large number of young people experiencing problems with anger management, eating disorders, self-harming, bullying and more.

As they consulted their peers they disovered that many were already receiving support from close friends, and that these friends were also looking for advice and information on the issues.

This led to the concept of a support group that is not confrontational or prescriptive, but allows young people to share their experience and empowers their own support networks by providing a 'quiet space' moderated by trained Peer Youth Workers who also provide information and referrals to relevant agencies.

Help Files

In response to young people's queries, a set of 'Help' pages was started for the website. These were then tested and reviewed by one of the website volunteers.

They are currently quite ugly/functional while they wait for a young volunteer with html writing skills.

Peer Youth Worker recruitment # 2

The trained Peer Youth Workers from 2006 submitted a funding bid to the Youth Opportunity Fund to recruit and train the nest generation of Peer Youth Workers. Their bid was successful and so they set about advertising the posts, designing questions, then interviewing and selecting new candidates. This was challenging as the standard of candidates was very high!

23 young people completed the application forms and all were invited for interview. URBIS kindly allowed the use of their Learning Suite for a whole weekend.

Detached Youth Work Conference

In February 2007 four of the trained Peer Youth workers attended a conference on detached Youth Work in Oldham. This was a great opportunity to discuss methods and practice with other professionals in workshops on young men’s well being, assessing risk on the street, and eating disorders. Needless to say they were the only Peer Youth Workers at the conference, but felt that they were able to hold their own and get their voices heard as professionals!

Peer Youth Worker training residential #2

“the best prize for me was working as a team, and realising we are a team”

Battle of the Bands

There has always been huge demand for a project that would allow young bands from urbis to play live for their peers. Once the Peer Youth Workers felt confident and experienced enough to organise and run this they submitted a bid to the Youth Opportunity Fund. This was successful, and URBIS provided the venue and security for free.

On the night 5 bands played to an audience of 256, and a further 30 young people were involved as performers and volunteers. THis was a huge success and plans are underway to run regular events - though the biggest lesson learned was that you can have a showcase without making it a competition!

Breakaway Training

The Peer Youth workers in 2006 had had Breakaway training as part of the project paid for by the City Centre Management Company. This is a form of self defence which simply allows them to get out of danger. The training also includes aspects of teh law and best practice.

They had found it very positive and relevant to their work, so when they were recruiting for 2007's Peer Youth Workers they also put in a Youth Opportunity Fund bid to enable the new recruits to also get Breakway training,

Self-harm survey and focus group

Depaul Trust are part of a multi-agency national initiative on young people's self-harm. They arranged to meet the Peer Youth Workers and some volunteers for a consultation on a planned website to help and support young people who are self-harming. 13 young people turned up early on a Saturday and the Cathedral kindly allowed us to use their Chapter room.

This consiultation went well, with lots of real first and second and experiences shared. Having worked on urbanalternatives.org.uk, the group were also able to contribute well thought out ideas for how a national website might work.

Drug and Alcohol Leaflet

The Peer Youth Workers identified the need for targeted work to help young people stay safe and to make them aware of the real problems experienced around urbis and the 'gasworks' area.

The project has been able to secure funding from the Drug and Alcohol Strategy Team at Manchester City Council to produce a leaflet of targeted practical advice for the Peer Youth Workers to distribute during their deatched work.

Preparation of text and images is almost complete and this should be printed soon.

Sun Screen

After their health and safety risk assessment the Peer Youth Workers had training in self defence, communication skills, managing risk and will soon be doing first aid training - but they also needed to be able to work outdoors in most weather and as part of this were carrying sun screen. It occurred to the Peer Youth Workers in 2006 that if they were carrying it anyway they could also provide it to their peers as a service!

It may only be a little thing, but this went down very well last Summer and so as soon as the sun came out in 2007 they were ready. This has also proved to be a useful prop to engage people in conversations as it takes time to put on (for reasons of health and safety and professional boundaries the Peer Youth Workers can only hand over the bottle - they can't actually apply it for people)

The Legal Advisors

One of the problems identified by the Peer Youth Workers is that many of their peers were misinformed about the law and also very reluctant to report crimes. Some of this was due to misinformtaion and negative perceptions of the police (reinforced by plain clothes operations on Cathedral gardens by Wardens whom many young people thought were Police)

Therefore when one of the website members came up with the idea of informing her peers about the law, the project was very keen to support her. Another young person was recruited and they came up with a format similar to the Agony Aunts, where they would take questions through a page on the website. They are also planning to visit agencies and research particlar issues.

Litter Picking 07

If proof is needed of the Peer Youth Workers ability to engage and influence their peers, then the litter picks provide plenty. Each week they convince up to a dozen image-conscious young people to come away from socialising with their friends to spend half an hour picking up other people's rubbish. There is no reward for these volunteers other than the knowledge that they've helped clean up the gardens and maybe changed people's perceptions of this group just a little.

First Aid Training

The Peer Youth workers put in a Youth Opportunity Fund bid to enable them to get First Aid training and purchase a first aid kit for each of them to carry. while most incidents on Cathedral Gardens are minor ones, this is another service the Peer Youth Workers can provide and adds to their confidence.