Task 4c (Developing my questions with my own professional community)

Here is my set of questions that I put out to you all last month that relate to my professional practise, I took these questions to my place of work and asked some of my colleagues what they thought and here are their responses.
1) How do activity programmes like those our organisation run (www.riversidecentre.org) prevent Young people from being on the streets and committing petty crimes in the community?

Answer by my line manager Frankie Wilson-

Our organisation provides SPACE for the young people, which stands for a Supportive Positive and Caring Environment. The work we do is FOR the Community BY the Community and IN the community.
By delivering activities such as Sports and cooking and running domestic violence, sexual health and disability awareness workshops young people have a safe place to go of an evening, staff they can talk to and trust and also where they can meet up with their mates to play pool, snooker, table tennis, the latest game consoles and broad games if they like, rather than say hanging out on the streets and easily finding themselves into trouble.

2) Later on in life what positive outcomes might the Young people have who have attended sessions like ours on a regular basis?

Answer by myself (Tanisha Thompson)-

By having new fun experiences at our youth club the local young people are able to make new friends and experience things they may never had done without our organisation being open. We have watched some of our young people make positive and efficient choices and steps towards their future and most of our young people are turning out to be trustworthy and reliable young adults. Positive outcomes that may arise from some of our young people-

• Positive, respectful and caring attitude to their own community later on in life.
• Lifelong skills gained for attending our youth club on a regular basis.
• Taking ownership/reasonability and to feel part of something.
• Being able to make new friends easier and to communicate effectively.
• Some of our YP may turn into inspirational role modules themselves.

3) Should all youth workers in my organisation be at least NVQ level 3 trained?

Answer by a co-worker (volunteer)-

Experience in working with children and young people is key in our job role, weather you’re a paid member of staff or a volunteer I think you should undertake relevant Playwork/Youth training but not necessarily obtain an NVQ level 3 as the government is imposing.

4) Would more summer schemes/ youth programmes have prevented young people from getting involved with this summer’s London Riots?
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/aug/30/national-citizen-service-prevent-rioting#start-of-comments)

Answer by a co-worker (Tony Kerr)-

• Young people were not the cause of this year’s riots in the capital, some young people jumped on the band wagon and got what they could out of it.
• Young people especially were targeted throughout these events in the media.
• The riots seemed to escalate very quickly and came totally away from the original protest.
• I think some Young people were easily lead on by older members of their community/general public.
• Enough youth programmes were running in my local area over the summer (The London Borough of Sutton) it’s just whether young people (11-19years) knew about the activities that were on and whether they wanted to attend. Overall we had a good turnout of young people across our organisations locations over the school holidays.