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As we come towards the renewal of the NYA Quality Mark, we have been thinking about how we can develop as a project. We are always looking for ways that we can move forward in order to meet the needs of the young people and community that we work with. The process of attaining the NYA Quality Mark has supported us to look at which areas we should prioritise. Thus, to develop the standard of our Youth Work Practice, this year we have delivered some internal, non-accredited training around the values of Youth Work. It is really important to us that we understand the needs of those we are working with and ensure that this is at the forefront of our practice. The training very much embodied this, covering how we can support young people’s personal, social and educational development in a way that starts where young people are at. This highlighted the importance of youth work being a completely voluntary service in which young people have the option to engage with, providing a unique source of support where young people feel safe and listened to. We had in depth discussions around the basic approaches within youth work, including anti- oppressive and anti-discriminatory practice focusing on how we can ensure our practice is inclusive, accessible and engaging for all young people. Additionally, we thought about how we embed Voice and Influence into our everyday practice to empower young people to take ownership of their lives and experiences. The training also covered the National Occupational Standards of Youth Work, Safeguarding practices, effective planning and delivery, and the pivotal role of reflective practice. This allowed us the space and time to think about our current approaches and ways in which we can develop this. The Youth Workers engaged wholeheartedly with this training, and it was promising to see how committed they are to their own learning and development in order to benefit the young people that we work with. “I found the Youth Work Training really informative. It opened my mind to different ways to better myself as a Youth Worker and to understand why we do certain things. Ayisja was happy to answer any questions and always made sure we understood what had been said.” We were happy to celebrate Volunteer's Week by dishing out some well deserved cards and gifts to all of our hard working volunteers. They are a great help in the sessions, the shop, the garden, and a lot of our events wouldn't be doable without their support. They're truly the backbone to our project the surrounding community and we hope we can continue to show our appreciation for them over the coming year.
We spoke to the young people about mental health and participated in some feel good activities for Mental Health Awareness week. Yoga, gardening, ice cream and some time to chat with Youth & Community Workers!
The last four months have been full of amazing volunteering opportunities; it's been a pleasure to watch our volunteers thrive in their roles and grow in confidence when tackling the difficulties they struggle with within their roles - whether that's speaking with the public, furthering their gardening skills, tackling the use of the till in the shop, etc.
We hope we can continue to support them and provide an encouraging space for development for our volunteers. The community have been busy sprucing up the allotment over the last week or so while the weather has picked up. We can't wait to see what they grow this year and what fantastic ideas they come up with for the space over the summer months!
Although we weren't granted the funding this year, we decided to go ahead and celebrate British Science Week this year regardless! We looked at sports challenges and timing ourselves in the younger sessions; space travel and planets with the girls; learning about dinosaurs a long long time ago & growing up in the toddlers group and doing a few experiments on the side not related to this year's theme: Time, but just for fun. It's been a great week and very successful. We can't wait for next year! It's International School Meals Day so we're going to boast about the fantastic work our campaign group did over the last year to tackle the issue of free school meals!
Our young people wrote to supermarkets for donations to be able to provide meals over the 6 weeks holiday to 59 young people per week. They also worked with Darren from Hull Food Partnership to create their own slogan and poster for their campaign. They met with Emma Hardy MP to discuss the quality of school meals and break times and wrote to local schools to highlight issues families were experiencing around this. |
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Hessle Road Network is a company limited by guarantee (No 04360117) registered in England and Wales and a registered charity (No 1097519). Registered Office : Network Young People’s Centre, 1 Massey Street, Hull HU3 3LA.