As 2017 draws to a close, two member of our youth team share their thoughts on what has happened this year.
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By Adam Muirhead, TDC Projects Manager – Youth Team.
This year has been a bit of a whirlwind for the youth team! The start of the year saw us support young people to be part of the #ProtectYouthServices campaign, which helped the City Council make a decision to continue funding youth work. This incredible piece of campaigning engaged thousands of local people in speaking up for services they believe in and need.
Following the decision to fund youth work in February the TDC then needed to work with partners to submit bids to the new grants programme for the end of June. Furious writing, phone calls, emails ensued (all the while still delivering our regular sessions to local young people) with the outcome being announced in August – SUCCESS! The funding programme that we received meant that from October 2017 the TDC would have 2.5 years funding from the Council and now manage and/or deliver youth work for over half of the city! We will continue to operate as part of the Brighton & Hove Youth Collective with our citywide partners and contract leads, the Hangleton & Knoll Project (HKP) and Brighton Youth Centre (BYC).
Our new remit has meant that we have taken on new staff too. Huge welcome in 2017 to Caroline Vitta, Chloe Thomas and Rosie Johnson!
It feels as though the Youth Work at TDC is going from strength to strength and this has largely been possible due to the huge amounts of support we have had from our Trustees, the wider membership, partners, all TDC staff and the wider communities. Of course, a massive thank you too to our enabling funders and sponsors.
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By Caroline Vitta, TDC Community Worker with Young People.
As we approach the end of 2017 I can look back on my first 3 months as a Community Worker with Young People for the Trust for Developing Communities. Some days I feel like I have been in this role for a long time – and other days I still realise I’m on an undulating learning path. Does that ever change? I hope not really, there’s always something or someone new to get to know.
My first 3 months have been busy with getting to know my immediate team, TDC colleagues and most of all the young people who use the youth clubs we run.
This first term has offered a varied programme of different things for them to do. As well as the regular youth clubs we have been on the Tech Trail, had a play with Halloween make up, filled up on an all you can eat buffet, and linked with the Brighton and Hove Black History Project to run Black History Event at the 67 centre – a great day of arts, exotic fruit, drumming, music and people getting to know each other. And to finish the term off we are going to make some lanterns with Same Sky and take part in the Burning of the Clocks parade on the 21st December.
