|
Report
to |
Bradford
on Avon |
|
Date
of Meeting |
9
November 2016 |
|
Title
of Report |
Community
Youth Grants |
1. Purpose of the
report:
To ask Councillors to consider the following applications seeking funding from
the Bradford on Avon Area Board.
|
Application |
Grant Amount |
|
|
Applicant:
Relate Mid Wiltshire |
£5000.00 |
|
|
Total grant amount requested at
this meeting |
£5000.00 |
|
|
Total amount allocated so far |
£2640.00 |
2. Main
Considerations
Councillors will need to be satisfied that grants awarded in the 2016/17 year
are made to projects that can realistically proceed within a year of the award
being made.
Area Boards have authority to approve Area Grants under powers delegated to
them by the Cabinet member for Communities. Under the Scheme of Delegation Area
Boards must adhere to the Area Board Grants Guidance 2016/2017.
Community Youth Grants will contribute to the continuance and/or improvement of
cultural, social and community activity and wellbeing in the community area,
the extent and specifics of which will be dependent upon the individual
project.
Community Youth Grants give all local community and voluntary groups, Town and
Parish Councils an equal opportunity to receive funding towards community based
projects and schemes.
3. The application
|
Applicant: Relate Mid Wiltshire |
Amount
Requested from Area Board: £5000.00 |
|
|
This
application meets grant criteria 2016/17. A sum of £ 19,846 remains
unallocated in the youth budget for 2016/17. How does your project support local needs and priorities?
The importance of good mental health has been acknowledged by the young
people in Wiltshire as a major issue and resulted in the Wiltshire Young
Peoples Your Mind Matters Charter that includes the importance of remembering
mental health can affect anyone and everyone should feel able to ask for help
if they need it. It also states that we should work in partnership to find
ways of making current mental health services more accessible to more young
people. In St Laurence School during Sept to June 2016 46 young people have
voluntarily used Relateen and the current provision of 10 to 11 hours per
week is oversubscribed with a constant waiting list in place. On average 50
of these are young people from families where financial hardship is a factor
and this year 64 were from single parent families - an increase on previous
years of 20. These young people are
experiencing serious distress and often do not feel comfortable about others
knowing that they are receiving our help, particularly boys. Even after
counselling we are ethically bound to allow them to draw a line under their
experience and move on in anonymity. However our Report to Funders shows that
this year 82 said they would recommend counselling to a friend the remaining
18 choosing not to answer. How have young people been involved in your project so far?
Self-referral - any young person can come to Drop-In in order to have an
informal chat about their difficulties ask questions about Relateen and then
make an informed decision about whether to access counselling or not. Often a
small group of friends will come in order to support someone they are
concerned about or to discuss a collective worry that they have. We are
committed to ensuring that every young person can exercise autonomy in looking
after their own mental health. We invite voluntary feedback after counselling
that is written and anonymous. We use this to improve and develop the service
for example if the young person feels the room is not private enough or the
location of it is too public we will work with the school to change it - this
has happened in St Laurence. We have also introduced a male counsellor this
year in addition to our female counsellor so that young people have more
choice and hopefully more boys may be encouraged to come in if only to the
Drop-In part of our offer. Presenting
Issues - We use the information clients give us on the nature and depth of
their problems to inform and develop counsellor training in order to better
support young people. This is done with individual counsellors via
supervision and also by group training. Recent subjects are social media
abuse and self-harm. Our training
shortly will be around Young Peoples Voice. Use of
sessions - The young person directs the sessions in so much as they are there
voluntarily it is their private space and they can choose what difficulty
they want to explore and what medium they feel most comfortable using to help
them. The Counsellor is led by the clients individual needs - they might use
the space to cry, shout, be quiet, be a child, then
as sessions move forward they can work on ways to understand their problems,
build up confidence or work on strategies to manage overpowering feelings
such as grief or anger. Exploring
ways to improve feedback - We will be introducing YP Core this year which is
a measurement tool to monitor progress as counselling continues so not just a
feedback at the end of counselling.
This is a Pilot and we shall see how young people feel about this tool
and if it is helpful to them in assessing their own mental health progression
or not. How many young people to do you expect to benefit?
Between 40 and 50 pupils per year and a further 10 per year that come to
Drop-In only at St Laurence School and a further 5 to 6 young people in the
village community in Holt. These are direct beneficiaries. Friends and family
members will benefit from the young persons
improved mental health also. The service is delivered on two days per week
for a total of 10 hours per week during term time at St Laurence. We wish to
increase that to 13 hrs per week which should help reduce waiting lists. In
addition to this service we have been approached by the LYN Management Group
to develop a pilot project in Holt that will support vulnerable teenagers.
This part of our bid will rely heavily on the Local Youth Worker and Relate
Counsellor to creatively engage and encourage young people to access
knowledge and support for their emotional wellbeing in whatever format that
works. Finding ways that work will be paramount and learning will be shared
with other village community areas and interested parties. We have budgeted
for the work to include an informal drop-in service and individual
counselling if that is what is needed. We will report to the Community
Engagement Officer on our activity and progress as we move through the pilot.
How will your project be accessible and affordable?
By locating this independent service in the urban school environment and also
in an outside school village environment we hope to reach any young person
that needs help. The work is funded from a mix of grant and school budget in
order to make it free of charge which is particularly helpful to vulnerable
young people. All clients commence with an Initial Assessment which is
designed to allow the Counsellor and client to decide if Relateen is the best
place to support the young persons concerns. If it
is not, the client will be signposted to other services or support. How will you encourage volunteering and community
involvement? As a professional agency we have
a policy of not using volunteer counsellors but by marketing the service
through local agencies and youth clubs where young people go we can encourage
community involvement by signposting each others
services. We are also interested in working with young volunteers to evaluate
our service and may be able to do this through new connections with local
youth groups. How will you ensure your project is accessible to everyone,
disabled, low incomes, vulnerable etc? We are a
universal access service and locate in school to offer to the widest
population that we can irrespective of financial circumstances. By piloting a
service in Holt we will see how young people feel in a village community
about having a service of their own and what it would look like. As identified
above nearly 50 of the young people we see are from disadvantaged
backgrounds. Examples of the reach to vulnerable young people are as follows:
Boy 15 sleeping in hostel with Mum brother and sister at night and living at
home afternoons and weekends due to domestic violence. Boy is angry confused
afraid and unable to communicate feelings to Mum. Girl 11 aware that her
relationship with Mum and Mums friend is wrong worried and desperate to share
concerns with someone she can trust. Wants things to change but afraid of
telling and what might happen. Girl 12 whose father committed suicide a year
ago now having angry and violent outbursts at school impacting on all
relationships. Initially she refused help from Cruse but now wants to talk in
private with someone she trusts. By locating in this school we can provide
disabled access for young people with special educational needs and young
people who do not have the resources to travel to another location. The
facility in Holt is also accessible to vulnerable young people who would not
find it easy to go to Trowbridge after school to access our service. How will you ensure your project is inclusive?
By ensuring that our Equalities and Diversity policy including staff and
recruitment and training practice is adhered to. By following the specific
guidance recommended by the British Association for Counselling and
Psychotherapy around best practice in terms of sensitivity training and
guidance to support minority groups. By statistics monitoring of age gender
presenting issues and outcomes of clients year on year and identifying if
some groups are missed and what the reason might be. By marketing as widely
as possible within the school community and in the wider community by word of
mouth. We are committed to equality and diversity. We strive to support young
people irrespective of gender sexual orientation culture race or disability. How will you work with other community partners?
We have strong links with other community agencies both statutory and
voluntary such as Social Care, Child Adolescent Mental Health Service, Victim
Support, Splitz, Splash, in addition to St Laurence
School and its full pastoral offer including peer and adult mentoring
programme. In addition to referring on some clients to specialist statutory
help we also keep up to date with local amenities in order to inform and
signpost clients to what is out there and encourage their own exploration
also. The Project Manager attends local MAF Multi-Agency Forums meetings on
invitation to update them on Relate services for children young people adults
and families. Regular attendance at the Wiltshire Children and Families
Voluntary Sector Forum 93 charities registered also keeps us up to date with
supportive work going on in West Wiltshire for young people so we can
continue to signpost effectively. |
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