YOUTH CLUB Providing for today
YOUTH CLUB Providing for today
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This publication has been created to provide an insight into the important role Youth Clubs play, not only in the lives of young people themselves, but also in the local community. Through visiting Ashton Vale club for young people on numerous occasions we were able to develop a relationship with the young people attending. This has given us an understanding of what it is this club and others like it have to offer.
Design James Somerfield Thomas Eves Sophie Tanat -Jones
Introduction
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Ashton Vale Club for Young People AVCYP
Local Area
7 - 19
Ashton Vale community Zygmunt Bauman - Community: Seeking safety in an insecure world. Open spaces After hours
After hours
21 - 31
Creating connections Youth Clubs are a cool place to hang out again Interview - Sue Brown Teachers view - Veronica Eyles
Camera Project
33 - 47
Ross/Ryan George/Josh Luke/Ellis Chris/Jordan Lily/Sam/Tia/Becka
Posive outcomes
49 - 61
Jez Hattosh-Nemeth - Social development Are you playing out? Interview - Brian Richards
the key to success
63 - 77
Youth Bristol - Creating choice Inclusive : Safeguard The future? Bristol Council - Youth services
Summary
78 - 80
Final review of project development References
Contents
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Title
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Chapter 1 • local area
It is important to understand what a local area provides when considering the impact a youth club can have on a community. Often there are open spaces where young people can congregate, but this is usually in daylight hours.
BS3
2QE
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Ashton Vale is a small community on the edge of South Bristol. With charming wide open spaces and land protected by Green Belt Policy, local people have valued these fields, woods and the beautiful Colliters Brook that surround Ashton Vale for generations. Ashton Vale is surrounded on three sides by industrial Estates, built up over the last forty years. It’s gem is the natural green open space, described as both the lungs of Bristol and Gateway to The historic City and County of Bristol. Ashton Vale is a long established community and Ashton Vale Fields are an intrinsic and important part of it’s identity. The area is frequented by both local people and from people from surrounding areas. With access to local countryside and walks it is the perfect place to engage with nature and wildlife, whilst being within a stones throw of the city. Ashton Vale Fields are used by walkers, joggers and families for a variety of purposes. The area is mostly flat and also has access to public footpaths. Ashton Vale Fields play host to a wide array of wildlife which has thrived in the area due to the absence of roads. Yet amazingly this unique area is again under threat from major development which would deprive people of natural open space and Green belt forever. This unique place would become part of a greater urban extension and change forever. Ashton Vale is a quiet traditional residential area in a treasured semi-rural position, set just minutes from a major city it has managed to maintain a village like atmosphere. There are many third and fourth generation families living here with uninterrupted views of Ashton Court, Dundry, Long Ashton and the ancient village church and village. Ashton Vale has lovely views of the famous Brunel Suspension Bridge and Clifton.
Ashton Vale community
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Ashton Vale community: Local area
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Ashton Vale community: Local area
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It’s gem is the natural green open space, described as both the lungs of Bristol and gateway to the historic city and county of Bristol.
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Zygmunt Bauman Community: Seeking safety in an insecure world
Since ‘community’ means shared understanding of the ‘natural’ and ‘tacit’ kind, it won’t survive the moment in which understanding turns self-conscious, and so loud and vociferous; when, to use Heidegger’s technology again, understanding passes from the state of being ‘zuhanden’ to being ‘vorhanden’ and becomes an object for scrutiny. Community can only be numb – or dead. Once it starts to praise its unique valour, wax lyrical about its pristine beauty and stick on nearby fences wordy manifestoes calling its members to appreciate its wonders and telling all the others to admire them or shut up – one can be sure that the community is no more (or not yet, as the case may be). ‘Spoken of’ community is a contradiction in terms.
We miss community because we miss security, a quality crucial to happy life, but one which the world we inhabit is ever less able to offer and ever more reluctant to promise. But community remains stubbornly missing, eludes our grasps or keeps falling apart, because the way in which this world prompts us to go about fulfilling our dreams of a secure life does not bring us closer to their fulfilment; instead of being mitigated, our insecurity grows as we go, and so we go on dreaming, trying, and failing. The attraction of the community of communitarian dreams rests on the promise of simplification: brought to its logical limit, simplification means a lot of sameness and a bare minimum of variety.
Community of common understanding, even if reached, will therefore stay fragile and vulnerable, forever in need of vigilance, fortification and defence. People who dream of community in the hope of finding a long-term security which they miss so painfully in their daily pursuits, and of liberating themselves from the irksome burden of even new and always risky choices, will prove to be of the ‘until further notice’ kind. Rather than an island of ‘natural understanding’, a ‘warm circle’ where they can lay down their arms and stop fighting, the really existing community will feel like a besieged fortness being continuously bombarded by (often invisible) enemies outside while time and again being torn apart by discord within; ramparts and turrets will be the places where the seekers of communal warmth, homeliness and tranquillity will have to spend most of their time.
Zygmunt Bauman
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Dame Emily Park (Bedminster)
Open space During the daylight hours, these parks and open spaces provide a great place to meet up with friends. The environment has no restrictions on what they are allowed to do, in doing so giving the young people a sense of freedom. Although young people often get a bad reputation for misbehaving in these parks, it gives them a new place to feel safe in, which is not home or school.
Dame Emily park
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Creating a location people can meet and have freedom.
Greville Smyth park
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Home time
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Chapter 2 • after hours
Youth Clubs provide a safe environment, often in the evening, where kids can hang out and partake in a range of activities.
Creating connections Forming new friendships
Since the club was first established, the number of people wanting to go has increased. The youths can be seen waiting for the club to open, giving them the environment to hang out, and socialise with their groups of friends. Although many people only belong to small groups within the youth club, through activities and sports, the club is able to create new connections
Creating connections
between people otherwise unknown. The club has a good number of people which attend every day it is open, which highlights the important role of the club within the local area. A good number of people come on the Monday, as it is a good way to relax after the first day back at school.
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Monday Tuesday Friday . 6:30 - 9:00
Opening hours
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Youth clubs are a cool place to hang out again by Celia Dodd
From learning rock-climbing to boxing, new hip high tech clubs are luring kids off the streets. Luring kids away from Facebook A ping-pong table and a place to hang out is no longer enough. The emphasis now is on structured activities, supervised by responsible adults, which develop personal and social skills; a report for the Department for Education and Skills in 2005 even suggested that youth clubs with no organised activities could be damaging. UK Youth, which represents 6,000 youth centres, advocates a ten-point curriculum to develop self-esteem, communication skills and problemsolving. But won’t too much structure put teenagers off? It’s already hard enough to lure them away from virtual clubs such as Facebook. In Bolton there are still opportunities to do both. Jeremy Glover, the club’s chief executive, says: “If kids don’t want to engage and would rather sit in a corner, meet their pals and listen to music, we ought to make space for them to do that. It’s all about them making their own decisions. What matters is that teenagers are safe when they’re finding their feet in that tricky transition from childhood to adulthood.”
near a huge window looking on to the sports hall where serious volleyball is played all evening; the open plan is a ploy to tempt kids to dip in and out of activities. Eyeing up the talent from the sidelines in immaculate make-up are Georgia, 14, and Megan, 15, who say they’ve come every day of the week for the past 18 months. Why? “Nothing else to do, and it stops you from hanging out on the streets.” What would they do otherwise? “Sat at home on MySpace. But it’s boring, the computer.” Meanwhile, in the packed gym, a group of friends recently arrived from Afghanistan try out the benchpress under the guidance of Yusuf, a part-time worker, who asks them more than once to stop play-fighting. A pasty hoodie won’t stop punching Yusuf in the arm, but the telling-off is good-natured. In other parts of the country, youth club provision is patchy: if teenagers are lucky enough to have a club, it probably won’t be open for more than one or two nights a week. Bolton is an exception because Glover took matters into his own hands in the mid-1990s and raised £5million - from the Lottery and local fundraising - to build new premises for the club, which had been housed for 100 years in a near-derelict mill.
Kids can dip in and out of activities In the main area of the club the music is loud and girls in winter jackets and diamanté dangle their legs from the air hockey table or huddle next to lads with shaved heads and striped hoodies on the sofas, keeping half an eye on a chaotic ball game near by. They’re sitting
Article: Celia Dodd
The club gets some annual funding from the local council and the Government, but it couldn’t survive without fundraising. Thanks to its high standing in the local community, a large proportion of its income and board members come from 200 local businesses. Meanwhile, volunteer numbers have risen from 50 to
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250 since the move five years ago. Like most clubs, Bolton is staffed largely by volunteers. But, as life gets busier, many other clubs have found it harder to recruit new people. John Bateman, of UK Youth, says: “There was a time where there were professionals in most communities willing to undertake these roles. Now people think twice because of lack of time, because of the added responsibilities, and the extra time to get trained.” More sensible than giving out ASBOs Volunteering has changed radically over the past ten years and can be a stepping stone to a new career or further education as well as a chance to give something back. Innovative clubs offer progressive training programmes to attract and retain staff. As a result, Bolton is able to run a mentoring project for more than 100 teenagers, a weekly session for Asian girls, and it has six minibuses that it can send out to collect kids from local estates - if required, they can respond to reports of trouble from police and residents and scoop up teens from the streets and take them back to the club.
What matters is that teenagers are safe when they’re finding their feet in that tricky transition from childhood to adulthood.
“It’s a much more sensible response than throwing ASBOs around,” says Glover. “So far the adult response to young people on the streets is mostly stick and not much carrot. Obviously, where young people are out of order, they need some discipline, but there’s got to be a lot more carrot in terms of offering them decent places to go, and the chance to be positive, active and healthy. We should be ashamed that while investment in recreational facilities for adults has soared in the past 25 years, the quality of youth clubs has stayed the same. And people wonder why kids vote with their feet.” http://bit.ly/jvZlCO
Article: Celia Dodd
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The main club attraction is the artificial football pitch.
Youth involvement
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Interview Sue Brown I used to go to the youth club on the Heartsease estate in Norwich. We just went there to go and hang out, meet boys and have a laugh. There were rules because obviously if you fought or messed around then you were out on your ear, people got shoved out. Basically it was nothing to do with your parents, nothing to do with school, it was just something that you enjoyed and looked forward to going to. Just meeting people and standing on your own two feet. I was just a normal thirteen-year-old kid that went down there to meet the boys, go to the dances on a Sunday and eat sweets and have fizzy drinks. We used to hang around in the loos and talk about boys and this and that. We were still a bit naughty but we never made a fuss because we liked the place. If we weren’t there we’d be hanging round doorways and parks which we liked too, the youth club just offered something different where we could dress up and have a dance and meet another boy hahaha. I didn’t go there to play table tennis or anything just wanted to have a chat and a gossip. They always had the latest music so we just all used to hang out.
Interview: Sue Brown
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Veronica Eyles Out of school hours
When kids go to youth clubs they learn to collaborate which I something they may not have been doing in school. Particularly if they are older or an only child. That’s quite an important reason to visit a youth club. There are two sorts of kids involved really and that’s those with and those without. If they're without then youth clubs will provide them with opportunities that they may not get at home. They will also get the opportunity to learn skills that they may not have been able to afford to had it not been provided by someone else. Things like Guides and Scouts that are still, in a sense, youth clubs take the kids sailing and things like that. For the more wealthier child, youth clubs may be less important as they may have the opportunity to interact with these activities in there own time or at private schools. In the past many youth clubs ran in connection with school and were part of a teachers own time. Nobody got paid for it but we wanted to do it for the kids, especially the poor ones. But that all changed when teachers had a 1265 hours limit put on what they were going to be paid to do. That meant that a lot of teachers backed out and it became a union issue then. That was such a shame because loads of kids benefited from voluntary activities that were being undertaken by the staff. You’ve still got those people doing voluntary work for kids, particularly kids in the poorer sector. Things like Scouts, Brownies, Guides and all sorts of other things.
Teachers view: Veronica Eyles
Youth clubs provide a space for kids to interact. That interaction is encouraged by the fact that the activities provided are ones the youths are interested in because they tend to be more eye catching and exciting. As a teacher and Head I always thought that it was a shame these things were not necessarily provided in schools to the extent they should have been. I think that there are quite a lot of schools that have community school status and obviously they’ve then got extra staffing to provide different activities beyond the school day. Another thing you seem to get at youth clubs is kids that would not usually interact with one another being mates. This is often because the peer pressures they have in school are not there any more and possibly they do not have the intellectual problems they might have in school. In other words they’re less likely to be called 'fatty' or 'four eyes' in a youth club setting because they would have the opportunity not to go. School is compulsory whereas going to a youth club is off your own back. It gives them the opportunity to be different people all together.
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4 main things from Youth Club
Collaboration Equality Sensitivity Independence
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Chapter 3 • camera project
In order to gain a deeper understanding of how the young people felt about the youth club we organised Camera Project.
Camera project was a one day exercise organised to gain an understanding of how the young people felt about the youth club. By providing disposable cameras and a list of proposed subject outcomes, we hoped to give the participants the opportunity to show their own individual experience. By encouraging a range of different groups to participate, we were able to see the different ways in which the space is used.
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Your group of friends
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The best thing here
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Favourite activity
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Take an action shot
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Something you buy
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Who helps you out?
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Member of staff
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How do you get here?
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Who are you?
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How do you feel being here?
Project guidelines
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Ross / Ryan
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George / Josh
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Luke / Ellis
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Chris / Jordan
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Lily / Sam / Tia / Becka
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Photo exhibit
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Photo exhibit: Descriptions
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Chapter 4 • positive outcomes
Not only do Youth clubs provide a safe environment, but they also encourage the development of skills that are beneficial later in life.
Jez Hattosh-Nemeth Social Development
When working with young people you automatically end up becoming a role model. It's an important part of growing up having different social models, from the age of around 4 or 5 kids need an new set of adults to entre into there lives in order for them to expand. There’s a need for that as social integration takes place. It’s really important for kids to develop and become aware of other adults in order for them to find their place within society. That’s what youth clubs are about, providing activities and events that enable kids to discover them selves amongst other’s away from the school environment that in a way can be quite confined. Youth clubs have a different set of rules from schools and that’s another reason whey they are so important for development. I was involved in many youth projects, often the aim is not only to provide a space with activities but also provide opportunities to talk about problems or issues affecting them. In order for that to happen it is important to look approachable, so the way you look and act becomes very important. As you get older kids begin to find it harder to relate to you, it's generally better to be of a younger age when working with young people. I’ve found there’s a difference between the way that girls and boys develop. At the age of around 11 that’s kind of it with boys, they just begin to do their own thing. Girls on the other hand want to be integrated far more. They want to talk and find where there bearing is within society. There really interested in their social sketch. Youth clubs provide a space where conversations about drugs and sex can be held without an element of fear. The whole idea of a youth club is to create a safe environment where they can explore themselves. Jez Hattosh-Nemeth
Youth clubs are massively important, if they didn’t exist you would need to create something like them for those people that are not children and are not yet adults. There a different species, I don’t mean that in a derogatory way, but there in transition. I mean if you look at the school system, if you think about kids that are coming out of primary school, There full of confidence, there really strong, there very knowing, there full of responsibilities for that school because they’ve been at the upper echelon of that school. Put them in a secondary school and they drop to the bottom and they have to start all over again. What youth club does is transcends that border. So you get kids that are primary school and kids that are going into secondary school interacting with each other. That’s not to say that the school system has got it wrong because challenge builds a person, but there have been other schools that have attempted to do things differently. A good example would be Steiner schools that were developed to transcend those divisions. The idea was that a student was developed progressively throughout there whole lives and they were given creative space to explore there interests. As human beings it’s great to have a space where you can gain an independent viewpoint on your world as a kid. That’s what a youth club achieves in the UK, it that objective space. Play initially to become safe in the space but actually they are about interacting with different people. Youth clubs also develop confidence; School develops confidence of a sort with your record of achievements, PSE, PE and things like that. Youth clubs achieve it in a different way.
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What youth club does is transcends that border.
Group participation
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Group participation
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Out there, in the street all sorts of dangers lie in ambush – In here, in the community we can relax and feel safe
Zygmunt Bauman
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Are You Playing Out? There was a time – not so very long ago – when youngsters "playing out" were a common sight in terraced streets across Bristol. But at some point, over the last generation, something has changed. Today, as I stroll through the terraced rows of Windmill Hill, there isn't a single child to be seen. No abandoned skipping ropes on front garden walls. No Action Men scaling front steps. No hop-scotch markings chalked on to pavements. Could it be the result of a growing angst from parents – fearful of increasing numbers of cars and an ever-spiralling consciousness of "stranger danger"? Or is it a result of children's evolving tastes – are they happier watching TV, or "socialising" with friends online? It's fair to say it's probably a combination of the two.
Local article: Are you playing out?
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School Home_
_Ÿouth Člůb
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Interview Brian Richards Well there was one down the bottom, where are we. I always get this name mixed up. The Diamond street car park, there was a physical building down there and that was in actual fact called a school, it wasn’t a nautical school but the school has got a name. That school actually had been condemned as a school so they decided to change it into a Youth Club, lots of people spent a lot of time there. There was another one on the other bit of Hebron Road, over that way isn’t it? It was in one of the big houses , we use to play table tennis in there. So there was lots going on, and in the schools they had these clubs as well, there was this Dorset House I’m telling you about. So that’s one, two, three, four within virtually spitting distance from each other in there, so there must have been good for use. I mean I’ve never thought about that, not until talking to you, it just brings it all back to you. There must have been quite a lot of us to do then, I mean we use to whip around from one to another. For example Totterdown was one of the best places, Totterdown YMCA. I used to go up there to play table tennis, because that was where they had the best nucleus of players up there, and as a young player I was quite good. They said to me if I had kept on with it instead of going off into politics, going to the services and all the other things I would have probably had quite a lot of potential, but I didn’t so that’s it. I could still play, but not to the rate they hoped I did, so there must have been quite a lot around for us to be involved with, which I think is probably missing nowadays.
Interview: Brain Richards
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Chapter 5 • the key to success
The success and key to the continuing development of the club, is the importance of providing choice for the young people. Unlike school and home, the youth club enable the opportunity to try new things.
Youth Bristol Creating choice
Tom Eves: What do you think youth clubs provide to a localised community? In the case of Ashton vale club for young people the majority are from the local area.
open up to a teacher or parent. But I think my view is that clubs are about enabling opportunities for young people that relationship with youth workers.
Kate Gough: It would be a young person’s centered area, an area with families and they would view it as a safe place for young people. The youth clubs that we have strongest contact with were developed in the 50s and 60s, which is when they were building the council estates in Bristol. So most of the clubs are in pockets of deprivation. So they provide additional resources to the community and we have heard of areas where they’ve identified crime reduction or antisocial behaviour reduction on the nights when clubs are open. Obviously that’s a big winner all round.
_So you would say that youth clubs are an important tool in the development of social skills?
From my experience a lot of young people really want just a place where they can hang out with their friends that’s not someone’s house and doesn’t have parents around. I used to run a club, just outside Bristol; we often found that people didn’t want to do, going out trips, like canoeing and stuff like that because they just wanted to be there. It very much depends on the resources of the individual club and a lot of the clubs they have good kit in terms of computers, IT suits and Xboxes and things like that and young people just want to hang out there really. The relationship that young people form with youth workers is a very crucial relationship at that time in their lives. I think mostly because they can explore issues that they might not want to explore with their parents and their peers and often issues come up that youth workers are trained to be able to respond to. Concerns about what’s going on in their lives, their bodies, their sexuality, their frustrations and anger, that sort of thing. On a very different level to how a young person would Interview: Kate Gough
Absolutely, yes, at the moment the government and funding is more about noticing outcomes of youth work which is the changes that have been made and often it is difficult for us to demonstrate that. We know that a young person has developed, so often accredited or recorded outcomes are in place to enable young people to achieve, particularly young people that are not so academically successful. I think that has, in some youth clubs, slightly changed the emphasis of what goes on in the clubs. For some young people, accreditation, when done properly, only builds on what a young person can do anyway. I mean you might notice, let's say, John’s very good at basketball and then you get them into the sports leaders award course and before he knows it he’s achieved an accreditation for doing what he wants to do. That’s when it works well, obviously when it’s a bit more pushed, and a bit more academic, it doesn’t work. You don’t want to put young people off coming to a youth club because they feel that it’s getting a little bit too much like school. That’s definitely a tension that we have in our sector at the moment. _Do you think that will become more common as government attempt’s to find ways of discrediting the value of youth clubs in order to justify closures and save money? Absolutely, now we have to prove its value and its worth. Prove its changing things for the better. Next 64
Interview: Kate Gough
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year Bristol will be commissioning out it’s youth services, which means that all the services at the moment will cease to exist as they are at the moment and will be tendered out. That’s a fantastic opportunity in some ways but its also there’s going to be a lot more need to demonstrate outcomes. The overarching problem with youth clubs is that you might not be able to pin point that until a young persons 20 and it might be what they didn’t do rather than what they did do. You never know, you could say ‘well he’s just ended up a neat young person, but that may have only happened because he was going to the youth club rather than hanging out with the wrong crowd’. We’ve got lots of stories from young people that have gone through youth work and have told us that they know that if they hadn’t joined the youth club I wouldn’t have found the confidence to do this and that but its quite antidotal I think. _What groups do you expect to come in when the youth clubs go up as tender? What the city are telling us is that they want to break it down into targeted activities and universal activities. The tension is between where the percentages fall, so what we mean by that is universal is a club that is open to anyone in that area. Targeted would be place for people that have got these issues going on in their lives. The city have wanted to put more of an emphasis on targeted but the sector has come back and said that we strongly feel that that universal is best because we should at least try and provide it 50-50. Universal is a safety net because it gets younger people in, before those issues come out. They’re also talking about targeted universals, so that would be targeted work in a universal setting and we have examples of that in lots of our youth clubs, which have really worked. _What exactly does ‘Targeted Universals’ mean? An example would be a youth club we work with in St Pauls. It works as a universal club because we open the door and anyone can come in. But we have also set up a music studio in the club, together with funds from the Targeted Positive Activities money, so we do some discrete targeted work because we know we want to work with young people who are at risk because of Interview: Kate Gough
gang culture, drug issues and domestic violence in there families. Were targeting some young people but know body would know that. So it’s a discrete service so that it’s not ostracizing anyone, saying ‘if you’re in this situation go into that room’. So Targeted Universal work is to me a very good compromise. _Your saying that the aim is to select something that you think will appeal to a particular demographic. Exactly, but you're doing it alongside other work, so you might have extra support in terms of staff that can do more focused work with some of those young people but to all extensive purposes everyone is going there doing music production in the studio. That’s an example of how we’ve managed to keep both going in our work, there’s lots of examples of that happening across the city that are reaching out to young people. Lots of children might be not so confident about going into a youth club because of some of those issues but they do need to have targeted support. They might have a disability, they might have social phobias or mental health issues, that is really coming up on the radar in youth work and the role that youth work can provide in offering support to young people or preventative work. _What do you feel that the future holds for youth clubs and how do you feel David Cameron’s suggestion of a ‘Big Society’ will effect it. Well were involved in the pilot for the National Citizen Service, which is David Cameron’s exact interpretation of what the Big Society should mean for young people. Were going to be working with 90 young people over the summer aged 16. It’s offering them an opportunity to become more involved in there own community. This is a nationwide project and this will be Young Bristol’s response to that, I think it will be really interesting. What we want to do is get young people into look at businesses, leadership, and community leaders. They’ve got to come up with their own community project.
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Universal + Targeted = Targeted Universals
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Inclusive
Safeguarding
Location + Design + Staff and Volunteers + Activities = Young People’s involvement
A Youth Club should be highly visible and located in the centre of its community, ideally in a neutral area of the community – A place where young people will feel safe.
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Spaces created for all to use and socialise.
Social interaction
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People of all ages are able to mix and work together.
Social interaction
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The Future for Youth - Matt & Julie
How do you see the club developing in the future?
Julie –
All depends on the council, the darker nights in winter they do need a summer to come, it just shows because of the figures, we have fifty kids in on a night. I mean where would those fifty kids be?
Matt –
I think there is a future for it, I shouldn't really say this, but the council have their priorities wrong. They fund problems, and its up to us to deal with the problems. The problems aren't interested in this. If the kids are in the park trying to cause havoc you bring them here and there's nothing for them. What are we supposed to deal with? 13-19 year olds?
Julie –
Yeah that's all we get funded for, so those that are here now aren't even funded.
Matt –
I think that's too late really, you've got to start them young. Because an eight year old gets dropped off by the parents and takes an interest in the club. They grow up through the club, with the rules. Where as if they come in at thirteen, after causing trouble, the parents don't want to know them. If you phone up their parents and say your kids been doing this, they say 'well what do you expect.’ I think the surrounding area would change if it wasn’t here, not sure how, I think the kids would miss it put it that way.
Interview: Matt & Julie
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I think the surrounding area would change if it wasn’t here, not sure how, I think the kids would miss it put it that way.
Interview: Matt & Julie
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Future: Closing club
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Future: Keeping club
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Interview the Bristol Council - Youth services
Sophie Tanat-Jones How does the Council support Youth clubs, for example in terms of funding or organising activities?
Bristol Council Well we have our own internal service delivery project across the city that we deliver ourselves, so we have youth clubs and other types of project or delivery services for young people across the city that we manage ourselves. We employ staff and we deliver those services. We also invest in the voluntary sector organisations, another way of saying that is we give grants to voluntary sector organisations to deliver services to young people, 13-19. So a lot of the voluntary sector organisations will apply to us. We have a very clear criteria in line with key values and principles, we make adjustment of that and then the money is allocated across the city to deliver services to 13-19. _Do you think that youth clubs benefit the community? I think so, in terms of our work we're very much focused on young people. So the face to face delivery that we have, whether that is through the voluntary sector or we deliver ourselves, it is with young people. However, of course that has impact on the local are because young people are part of the community, so we are working with a small part of the community. And because young people have activities on a local level that they can engage with, it also enables them to link in a better way with the local community. Usually what you hear is all the anti-social behaviour but if they've got something local they can engage with it diverts them from those kind of activities and gets them to focus on something positive and helps them with their personal and educational development.
_Do you think that it's becoming more apparent that ages going to youth clubs are 11-14, because at about 16 they're losing interest? What does Bristol provide for late teenagers, or are they the ones hanging out in parks causing trouble? Well in terms of our priority age range, it's 13-19. 1113 would be play rather than youth work our funding should focus on 13-19 and that is very clear in our criteria, if our funding isn't used in that way, and we don't know about it, we are putting money in voluntary sector organisations and they are delivering services to people who are under 13, if we found out this was happening we'd ask questions because our funding doesn't cover that age. In terms of young people hanging around in parks, there is detached teens who will work with them, there's also the AYA bus. And that bus provides services across the city. They usually have highlighted areas where they would spend 3 months, 6 months, whatever's needed and the buses have computers and various activities young people can engage with and also we have other workers down in parks and various other places. _Do you see the government cuts to the youth sector affecting clubs? As the office of the local authority I don't think I'm in a position to say anything. At the moment we have a budget which we are working within and of course there will be cuts in the public domain we know we are going to have but what that actually means to our service I don't know because I don't have the information in front of me. _In your opinion to do you see Youth Clubs as a valuable asset?
_How many youth clubs are there in Bristol? The majority of areas will have some sort of provision within a one to two mile radius.
Interview: Youth services
Of course, I work in the youth sector and I believe it makes a huge impact on young people's lives and youth work is a tool that enables young people to socially develop there understanding of themselves and the community they live in. It's a very valuable tool. 78
_Following from that point, what do you think is the most valuable lesson they'll learn? It depends on the outcomes they are looking for and the stage they are at. You could have basic projects and the outcome would be for a person to work out how to get to A to B. So getting on the bus would be something that they haven't done that before and through their engagement with youth work they have managed to, that would be a recorded outcome. Credited outcomes, we have all sorts of different ones, for example Duke of Edinburgh, ASDAN, all sorts they can engage with. The levels of learning are different in line with that young person or groups needs, it depends. If you're talking about accredited projects, outcomes could help them with their future, education, career development or personal level. On a lower level it could be a recorded outcome that helps their learning. It makes a huge difference to their lives.
they can socialize with people perhaps they wouldn't at school due to peer pressure.
_Have you worked at a youth club in Bristol? I'm not from Bristol I came here already in a managerial position and haven't worked here as a youth worker however if I walk into a youth club I will become a youth worker. _From what i've experienced it's good to see that kids they've chosen to be there and that they can socialize with people perhaps they wouldn't at school due to peer pressure. Yeah it's an opportunity for them and it allows them to establish their own potential. They're their voluntarily, it's up to them. Youth work is not like teaching, they chose to be there and make their own decisions. In formal education they don't have those choices. I believe in youth work and it's important.
Interview: Youth services
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Our initial aim was to provide something new for the young people that attend the youth club in Ashton Vale. Our intention was to use our design skills in order to create projects that would have a positive impact. Through visiting the club on numerous occasions and getting to know the people involved our focus naturally evolved. We came to realise that the youth club already provided the environment that the youths of the community required. Prior to this project none of us had any experience working with this age group. Often we would arrive at the club with a project but then instantly realise that we had misjudged our audience. The camera project represents our only real success in terms of working with the young people; it was really open to interpretation and therefore allowed the participants complete control over their outcomes. A successful club for young people is one that offers a space for kids and young adults to develop and express themselves freely. A youth club should offer opportunities and guidance without overly forcing it on to those that do not want it. From our personal experiences working with the members of the club, we were able to gain a greater understanding of the positive aspects provided. To many young people, these spaces provide something completely different to that of school and home. Throughout the process of our project, we gained a greater understanding of how small clubs and groups play an important role in the development of young individuals. The final conclusion of the project does not reflect how design can be used, but instead, how our design skills celebrate and create awareness of the clubs role in the community.
Summary
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Team photo, accompanied by the mayor.
Team photo
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Typeset Effra Light , Interface & Tondo Printed on GF Smith Colorplan Pristine White 135gsm References ashtonvale.moonfruit.com ashtonvaleheritage.co.uk youngbristol.com ukyouth.org bedminsterpeople.co.uk
Thanks to Julie Chapman Matt Cox Ben Barker Jez Hattosh-Nemeth Kate Gough Brian Richards Veronica Eyles
Copywrite 2011Š
References
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Ashton Vale Club of Young People AVCYP James Somerfield Tom Eves Sophie Tanat-Jones Copywrite 2011 Š