Case studies in the power of integrated services and collaborative working

The Street based team and pop up youth club

The street based and pop up provision have been in development as a pilot project launching in February 2019 in response to reported incidents of anti-social and disruptive behaviour which took place within Central Lewisham in 2018. Under the Street Based remit, street based and pop up youth club have been working in collaboration with each other, working hand in hand addressing and meeting the needs of young people within the central Lewisham area.

Key successes:

Reduction in anti-social behaviour in the river mill area of central Lewisham
De-escalation of potential anti-social, serious youth violence and safe guarding incidents.
Pop up youth club service consistently running 5 days a week during term time
Positive relationships created between local youth and Glass Mill leisure centre
Higher youth usage and engagement of health facilities at Glass Mill leisure centre
Schools partnership s built- TLG school, Prendergast Vale & Abbey manor college.
Pop Up youth club pilot summer programme ran in partnership with TLG School.
Partnership with Greenwich Lewisham Bexley Youth Engagement Police Team who regularly attending pop up youth club sessions to engage with youth and break barriers.
Partnership with Lewisham Town centre Safer Neighbourhood Team- Regularly attending pop up youth club, engaging with youth club activities to break barriers between MET and Police
Employment of Youth worker in charge to support with the development of the pop up youth club.

Number of sessions (Starting February 2018): 211
Hours of delivery: 809
Number of Session Attendances: 4184
Number of individual participants: 259
Number of regular participants (young people that have attended 8 or more times within a term): 75

Street Based Plans for the Year Ahead

Provide a 16-plus offer with a focus on employment and personal development in partnership with DWP and Lewisham central businesses.
Expand a partnership with Lewisham Homes to reduce local estate based anti-social behaviour.
Create Pop up youth Club Youth Forum to bring young people’s voice and say into the youth club developments.
Achieve the London Youth Quality Mark.
Build relationships with 2 additional key local schools, St Matthews Academy and Christ the King Sixth form college
Work with young people, the community and key agencies such as the police, Children’s social care, CAMHS, schools and community safety teams to tackle knife crime and incidents of youth violence.
Expand Recruit additional staff in order for street based delivery to run consistently alongside the pop up youth club.
Joint training with the MET and local key stakeholders in effective youth engagement and de-escalation strategies.
Train team and launch Glass Mill leisure centre climbing wall activity as part of the pop up youth club offer.

Universal Schools Safety Program

From September 2018 to March 2020, the Universal Schools Safety Project has continued to be offered to schools supported by experts from Compass and Youth First. After receiving encouraging feedback from all schools in 2017/18, we knew that the provision had to continue and applied for and won Young London Fund and Home office funding to enable a continuation and expansion. This has seen us add provision to year 9 students, outside school hours activity at Youth First sites, alternative provision for vulnerable young people in PRUs, collaboration with an independent organisation TLG (a independent program designed to help individuals grow in confidence, raise their aspirations and reach their full potential – providing building blocks for a better life) and USSP training for staff.

Highlights

We started our 2018/19 USSP program at Sedgehill School with great support from teachers throughout the day. We were also joined by Dumps APG to promote their provision and Kevin Jackson from the MET Police, who facilitated a workshop on Money Laundering and Squares. Other highlights included a February visit to Prendergast, where we were also able to promote our new pop up youth club in Glass Mill Leisure centre.

March sessions at Haberdashers Knights which included a full school assembly where Students who had misbehaved during the day were able to report back on how much they had actually learned from the more informal means of delivery. We also promoted our services those of Compass and the Young Mayors Team.

Plans for 2019-2020

Continue the offer to Lewisham secondary schools.
Reach a wider age range of students in Lewisham schools (including more Year 9 groups)
Extend delivery to alternative provision for vulnerable young people including in PRUs and our own sites.
Reach more at-risk and school-excluded young people.
Train more youth workers to run sessions