Prospex win an award!

Last night we won an award from the Centre for Social Justice for our work.
It was a great and inspirational night and we will tell you all more soon including how we will use the money.

Young People feel demonized.

I was with a group of young people on Sunday who told me how they feel demonized because of the media.
They could all give illustrations of how adults have verbally had a go at them when they were not doing anything wrong.
In our work at Prospex it seems that it is not OK to be part of a group bigger than 3 and if you do it is assumed that you are committing anti-social behaviour.
The problems we are facing in our country are deep rooted and there is no quick fix solution but young people will live up to the expectations we put on them.
Perhaps that is where we need to take a good look!

Turning young lives around!

Earlier in the year we took four young people on a five day Outward Bound course in Aberdovey Wales. The experience took them out of their comfort zone and challenged many areas in their lives. Each of them discovered something new about themselves and they all made some significant life style changes as a result.
Last night I met one of the lads in Uniform when I asked about it he and a friend have joined the Police Cadets and they are both loving it. They are proud of the uniform, enjoying the challenges and discipline of it. It was fantastic to here them enthuse and see how the lad we had taken has carried on since his return to the Cally.
It takes courage to join the Police Cadets and go against the flow of your peers. We count this as a success and look forward to seeing him and his mate develop in the next few years.

Book of remembrance.

Prospex is hosting a book of remembrance for Ben Kinsella today 10- 4, Tuesday 10-6 and Wednesday 10 - 4. If you would like to sign it and leave a comment please just turn up.
You can find us at 334-336 Caledonian Road Islington London N11BB.

Ben Kinsella.

Our sympathies go out to the Kinsella Family and all those who knew Ben.
There really isn't words to describe how we and the community feel about his death.
Today we have shed lots of tears with lots of young people.

21 years of Youth Work.

Had the pleasure of attending a ball at the Waldorf Hotel hosted by the Rank Foundation celebrating 21 years of youth work and training. They started the main part before a starter with a presentation they had put together featuring our very own Maxine Johnson and many pictures of our young people. It was very moving and a great resourse. The Archbishop of York was the after dinner speaker and was direct and motivational. I will blog more on another day as it is now nearly 1 O'clock and I have a busy day tomorrow. But first a quote from Charlie Harris of the Rank Foundation: "We ignore young people at our own peril." more on that another day too.

Funding success.

Started this week with the great news of a funding success that will enable us to develop some youth enterprises offering accreditation and for some the opportunity to start their own bussiness. It means alot of prep but is very exciting so watch this space.

Boundaries

I have spent some time today on defining the boundaries of our detached (street) work, looking at where we currently work and where we could extend our work to if we had the right funding and workers.
It is quite an exciting process when you start to see the possibilities of making contact and working with more young people.
The next stage is to contact all the youth and children's providers as well as community groups in that area and introduce or reintroduce ourselves. If we expand our patch we don't want to offend existing work that goes on but would love to work in partnership with others.
When we are a bit further on the map will go up on the web site and I Will update you on how it develops.

A question, when you hear the word detached do you know what it means? Is it a user friendly term? What else could it be called?
Comments below please.

Neets.

1 in 10 teenagers are Neets - not in education, employment or training new figures show. This is an improvement on previous years due to more young people taking sixth form courses or training last year.
Although that may sound shocking for some people reading, for us at Prospex it is no surprise as we see the sharp end with far more than the national average among the young people we work with.
Our challenge is how we help the young people we work with to not be labelled a Neet (I hate terms like this by the way). We already do this especially with our Prospex Works stream but we are always striving to make a bigger impact.
We have some new ideas in the melting pot that we will share at a later point but would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Lights, Camera, Action.

Yesterday afternoon we were involved with a film crew who interviewed some of the young people we work with along with Maxine and James and myself. I had to paint the big picture and say what made Prospex different. It is a great way to focus on what you are about when you only have 2-3 minutes to get the message across. It also highlighted the importance of telling the stories of the successes we have however big or small.
I will tell you more about why they were filming us but at the moment I am sworn to secrecy!

First day. (Focus on Family's)

Well it has been my first day as the manager of Prospex and a large part of the day has been spent on Families.
First there was a meeting with a funder who we have put in a bid with towards a family support worker.
Then I spent some time with a family who we are involved with working with both the Mum and three young people.
Finally we ended the day at a council meeting talking about tendering for family work particularly with children aged 14-19 year olds.

Family work is key to what we do at Prospex in many respects the key work stream. We can spend hours working with a young person but at the end of that piece of work they go back to their home situation which can often undo the work we have been doing. So it is essential we work with family's and give parent/s care givers the tools and support they need to cope with the daily pressures of being a parent.

We are hoping to be able to appoint a family support worker in the not to distant future so watch this space.