We’re very proud to be co-sponsoring the much-loved Argus Youth in Action Awards this year – an annual opportunity to give recognition to truly inspirational young people in Sussex.
In collaboration with the British Airways i360, we are sponsoring the “Star of the Year” award. This will go to a young person who has been acknowledged for their kindness, courageousness, success, skills or talents throughout their life so far and who is recognised for showing great potential to becoming an inspirational adult in our society one day.
At the end of February, Brighton & Hove City Council approved their final budget. Thankfully the youth services were not slashed by the drastic 80% that was initially proposed, but were cut by about 15% meaning that around £645,000 remains in the city’s youth budget this year. This was welcome news – securing vital services for the next few months whilst we prepare to apply for the next commissioning round and get ready to show the council just how important this work is.
So for the time being – Following a HUGELY successful campaign to #protectyouthservices across Brighton & Hove the Council will continue to fund things such as youth clubs, summer activity programmes, young women’s groups, bike mechanics clubs, street-based youth work and a whole host of other things that the TDC deliver for children and young people.
We can’t say thank you enough to all the people who supported the campaign by signing the petition, completing the consultation, and joining protests or the massive march through Brighton Town Centre.
Hundreds join young people in January’s Protect Youth Services march
Loads of the young people we work with have caught the ‘active citizenship’ bug and continue to be involved at a higher level in promoting the citywide strategy for youth services’ future. Huge respect and admiration is due to these committed teenagers; we’re extremely proud to be working with them.
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To stay posted on what young people in Brighton are doing to protect their services in the longer term:
Over 3,500 people in Brighton & Hove are living with Dementia. These people might be our friends, colleagues or family members – individuals in our city who wish to continue to live and take part in their community but who may face difficulties going about their daily lives.
On Thursday 9th March, 100 delegates attended the launch of the Dementia Action Alliance Brighton & Hove. Organised by Age UK Brighton & Hove with its partners TDC, the Carers Centre and Engage and Create, the movement is asking groups across the city for their pledge to become dementia aware and help support people with dementia along with their carers and families.
The Mayor of Brighton & Hove Councillor Pete West opened Thursday’s event and welcomed the launch of this important alliance, which will work to create a dementia friendly city and support people living with dementia to continue to live their lives well.
The Alliance is encouraging people to become Dementia Friends. An initiative of the Alzheimer’s Society, Dementia Friends aims to change people’s perceptions of dementia and to help more communities and businesses to become dementia-friendly. A session to become a Dementia Friend can take as little as an hour and can drastically help in knowing how to respond to people with the condition. Sessions are run by Dementia Friends Champions – volunteers, like TDC’s Sue Sayers, who tell people about dementia, how it affects people’s day-to-day lives, and how individuals and groups can make a positive difference to people living with dementia in their community.
TDC supports over 500 older people in Brighton & Hove, developing groups and activities based on their needs. From the sessions run by TDC staff at New Larchwood, Sloane Court and Leach Court, to the tea dance we held for Brighton & Hove Older People’s Festival last year, our work helps give residents a chance to socialise and stay active; improving their health and wellbeing. TDC are proud to be a part of the Dementia Action Alliance – delivering community work such as developing a Dementia Friendly Toolkit and working with groups to share information.
TDC’s Sue Sayers with her Dementia Friends Champion Handbook
Speaking at the launch were Julie Kalsi (Partnerships Support Officer from Crawley Borough Council), Dr Naji Tabet (Reader and Honorary Consultant, Centre for Dementia Studies), Martin Harris (Managing Director Brighton & Hove Bus Company), Jo Foster (Project Manager My Life Films) and Ellen Jones (Carer of a person living with dementia).
Sue tells us “Between these key-note speakers we saw clips from a film about Joyce, a woman living with dementia, going about her daily life, and her encounters with friends and workers. These encounters were mostly with people who had become Dementia Friends through the Alzheimer’s Society initiative and illustrated how these supportive interventions helped Joyce to maintain her independence and cope with the challenges presented when living with dementia.”
After the speakers we were treated to a Dementia Friends awareness session by Lyn Hopkins who took us through an imaginative illustration of how dementia affects a person through an analogy of two bookcases, one holding a lifelong set of memories relating to facts and information and a second one storing our memories of emotional connections. If you would like to see this illustration in detail you can watch the Dementia Friends bookcase analogy on Youtube.
All delegates were then invited to become a Dementia friend themselves by identifying one simple action they could take and filling this in on an action card to be sent to the Alzheimer’s society. These delegates each then received a forget-me-knot badge and will be added to the 2 million total of Dementia Friends throughout the UK.
Julie Kalsi explained that Crawley had been amongst the first 12 areas to be recognised as Dementia friendly and in 2014 won the ‘Local Initiative’ category at the National Dementia Friendly Awards – beating Liverpool and Bradford. She shared some great advice for the Alliance:
* What’s good for dementia is good for all
* Enthusiasts build enthusiasm
* Nothing is new
* It takes time
Measuring the enthusiasm in the hall at the Brighthelm on the day the Brighton and Hove Dementia Action Alliance is on its way to great things!”
As Sue tells us above, there are already over 2 million Dementia Friends across the country, and in a bid to help more communities and businesses become dementia-friendly, the Alzheimer’s Society are aiming to get four million Dementia Friends on board by 2020.
Please become a Dementia Friend, join the Dementia Action Alliance, and help make Brighton & Hove a Dementia Friendly City. If you want to know more please contact Sue at [email protected]
Last year we joined forces with the British Airways i360 as their official charity partner. The team have pledged to help us raise funds and awareness of our work across the city and they’re certainly delivering on their promise…
Fundraising for youth work.
First up – The events team raised an incredible £500 for us over Christmas from their cloakroom donation collection box. We will put these funds directly towards detached youth work – getting out there on the streets to help young people identify and articulate the challenges that are facing them.
A new freezer for CHOMP lunch club.
Secondly was the donation of a brand new freezer – an item the BAi360 team no longer needed, but was exactly what Chomp Club in Bevendean were after.
Chomp is a lunch and activity club for children and families who struggle to eat well during the school holidays. Latest figures from the Office of National Statistics show record levels of poverty in working families and there are many low-income familes that are struggling in Bevendean. The Chomp Club, held at the Salvation Army on Leybourne Road, is a lifeline.
The recipients were thrilled, saying “having our own freezer will make a massive difference to us. Our food is donated by FareShare Sussex and this means we can keep it separate from the other groups at the venue and have space to store everything”.
With a background in hotel management, festival catering and as a councillor in Lewes, Liz Lee was perhaps a rather unusual candidate for the role of Community Development Worker in Hollingdean when she applied for the role 9 years ago. She went for it nonetheless, and though initially surprised when she landed the role, she has never looked back.
Now it’s time for Liz to move on, so we thought it would be a good opportunity to ask her to reflect on the change she has seen in the area since she’s been involved and look at the substantial impact she has made during the years she has been working in Hollingdean.
We bid adieu to Liz Lee – after 9 years as Community Development Worker for Hollingdean.
Within her first few days in the role, Liz had noticed the shocking disrepair of the local skate park, and when a concerned resident rang her a few days later to complain about the diabolical state of it she told them she couldn’t agree with them more. A conversation began and 3 years and a lot of hard work later, Hollingdean had a new skate park. The community worked with Active for Life and the council to make it happen and had young people get involved to design the space. “This was key,” says Liz, “as it’s their space, so they needed to decide what it looked like”. Challenges included the sourcing of funds as well as getting the local authority to agree to maintain it afterwards, but it was all worthwhile to create what is now a very well-used skate park.
A highlight of her time here has been the arrival of the Lucky Dip Fair – a mini festival held twice a year which uses a local bus stop as the stage. She is pleased to have helped residents set up the first few fairs, and is now pleased to see them running it on their own. “When it comes to the fair, the residents can stand on their own feet now. The talent in Hollingdean is fantastic – whether you’re looking for a ceilidh, a folk group or someone to MC, you can find them here. We even discovered that the Children’s Laureate, Chris Riddell, is local and that some of the residents knew him, so were able to get him along too.”
Hollingdean residents at the Lucky Dip Fair.
She elaborates, “A key thing about the lucky dip Fair is that it doesn’t cost that much. The Lucky Dip itself, as well as the tombola, cost just 50p to enter and there are lots of homemade goodies and prizes – so it’s not too expensive for parents to bring their families along”.
Consultation with the community has been a vital part of Liz’s work and a part which she thinks makes the biggest difference to people’s lives. She emphasizes that community development work is not about telling people what they need, it’s about asking them – to be able to understand what they truly need. CDW’s can then help steer and advise local residents and put them in touch with the appropriate people and organisations to find solutions. Liz says “It’s about giving people the confidence and empowering them to do things for themselves. You’re there to support them, but it’s their show”.
A Hollingdean ‘Communty Catch-up’ takes place once a year, with other consultations taking place as and when needed. Liz’s role involves facilitating the discussion and interpreting the results. “It’s about saying ‘Here are the results, how do you want to progress this?’ Then residents can see that what they’ve said matters and makes a difference”. One recent resident consultation has involved research around the speed of traffic through the area – exploring ways to get drivers to slow down. Residents will continue to liaise with the council on the project once Liz has gone.
Another favourite project for Liz was being involved in the planting of 100 trees in Hollingdean in partnership with Brighton Permaculture Trust around 4 years ago. “Residents expressed an interest in seeing a greener Hollingdean, and 100 new trees is a pretty good start” she says, “working in partnership was essential, Brighton Permaculture Trust had all the knowledge and know-how that we needed”.
When asked about the challenges in her work, Liz talks about working with the council on the issue of opening the community café at the weekends. Following the success of the skate park, residents identified a need for toilet and refreshment facilities. With the café on the doorstep, it made sense to open it, with local people volunteering to staff it. But the idea was met with resistance from council officers – some of whom had pre-conceived notions of what it meant to live in Hollingdean. She remembers one council officer insisting that they would need to include the cost of security on the door if the café were to open “It would’ve been completely unnecessary” says Liz, “And the kind of thing that never would have been suggested had the café been in Saltdean”. Other members of the council have been very supportive however, and the café has opened over the past 2 years. This summer, residents will decide for themselves whether to continue with this set up. Liz feels proud that they now have the confidence and knowledge to discuss these sort of issues with the council themselves.
Liz and some of the Real Junk Food Project team – every Thursday a group of volunteers run a community pay-as-you-feel cafe at Hollingdean community centre.
She has seen a lot of change in the area, but emphasizes that there is still a lot to be done – “Community development work is a slow process, everything takes time”.
She’s been impressed with how young people have risen up against the proposed cuts to youth services across the city. “They’re the ones doing it” she says, referring to the marches organised by young people to protest against the cuts “and I do love a good demo”.
As we bid adieu to Liz, Kirsty Walker, Project manager here at TDC says “Liz started with TDC in 2008 and is one of the longest serving staff members; longest within the community development team. She epitomizes what we value in our development workers, which is an ability to see the value in all individuals and an inclusive approach making sure all voices are heard and ideas shared. At her leaving do the residents were vocal in their appreciation of her and I think the most used word was ‘kind’. She will be hard to follow, but Hollingdean is a vibrant engaged community and a lovely area to work for a new development worker coming in.”
It’s impossible not to notice the pride with which Liz speaks of the area and the sparkle in her eye when she talks about the people. She’ll miss the residents and her colleague Shirley, who manages the admin of the building and with whom she’s shared an office for the past 9 years.
“It doesn’t seem like 9 years. I’ve definitely come to love Hollingdean – the residents are amazing and Hollingdean is very special” she tells us.
So despite taking a risk in applying for the job in the first place, Liz is so pleased she applied to TDC all those years ago. “I’m so glad I went for it, she says, “It’s been an amazing and very important part of my life”.
Liz is looking forward to coming back for the next Lucky Dip Fair and when asked whether she has anything to tell the residents her message is simply “Keep on doing what you all do so well”.
At our AGM last October we welcomed a number of new trustees to the TDC board.
Often working behind the scenes, the trustees play an important part in our organisation. They ensure we have a clear strategy, keep a check on our finances and activities, support our staff team and take overall legal responsibility for the work we do.
One of our new trustees is Lou Carroll, a digital marketing expert, who as a volunteer has already made a huge contribution to the work we do.
We are delighted to have her on board and here, Lou tells us a bit more about her involvement with TDC.
“I’ve been volunteering with TDC for just over four years. I was closely involved in developing our communications strategy, as well as our rebranding and the redesign of our website, which we launched at the start of 2014.
When writing news stories for our website, I visited all our community centres around the city and was really inspired by seeing the great work being done by our Community Development Workers, and by their groups and committed volunteers. Our contribution to the city is so widespread and varied that it’s always been a bit of a challenge for us to sum it up neatly in our communications!
My day job involves digital media and strategy for third sector organisations, and I applied to be a Trustee this year because I think I can make a useful contribution to the board at a time when our digital presence is so important for us to attract new streams of funding, expand our own community of volunteers, and increase our reach across the city.
I’m looking forward to working with the rest of the board, in particular to finding new ways of attracting other organisations and new volunteers to get involved with the amazing things we do. There are loads of ways you can get involved and help us improve lives around the city. Read about some of the things you can do, or contact us – we’d love to hear from you!”
Lou (centre) at last year’s AGM where she became a new trustee.
Here at the TDC, we were all shocked and saddened when we heard the leaked news that Brighton and Hove Council were about to cut 100% of their budget for youth work in the city. Although in the third sector we have all grown accustomed to words like ‘cuts’ and ‘austerity’, this was a particularly extreme circumstance, and a hard blow for everyone at the organisation to take. Our jobs were now on the line, not to mention the future of the youth centres and projects we run in the city.
However, instead of getting overwhelmed and just plain sad about it all, myself and the youth workers at the TDC have spent the last weeks and months educating, informing and collaborating with young people around how we can all take positive actions to oppose the cuts together. We have spent sessions painting colourful banners, having open discussions about politics and the role it plays in all our lives, signing petitions and working out ways we can all collaborate to make sure our voices are heard and our opinions represented.
Hundreds of people marched through Brighton city centre in January to protest against the cuts
Youth work is perhaps one of the ‘easiest’ things for local governments to cut in times of austerity, and this is nothing new. I’m not sure exactly why this is, but it could be because it can be difficult to measure the tangible effects of this type of work, and that makes it easier for governments to dismiss it as having limited value. Whilst it’s easy for a teacher to say X amount of my kids passed their History exam this year, it’s harder for a youth worker to say, we have kept X many young people out of jail, prevented X teenage pregnancies and offered invaluable moments of support, friendship and inspiration to X many young people X times a week. Youth work is often referred to as ‘informal education’, and in many ways what we offer is a unique space and support that young people may not get at school or at home.
As a youth worker I’m inclined to say that the work we do is essential, and obviously the thought of cuts makes me angry as well as frustrated. I believe youth workers are important role models, rather than authority figures like teachers and parents, and that’s a very unique and powerful role to play in someone’s life. I feel very privileged to do the work I do, and I believe the profession should be valued and protected, not scrapped.
I would describe our youth club as a place where open discussion is encouraged; a space where creativity can bloom; a place where antisocial and damaging behaviour is gently and sensitively corrected by example. I am fully aware of the consequences of removing a bedrock of support like a youth centre from young people in some of the country’s poorest communities. But much better I leave it to the young people themselves to tell you what they think, as they are, of course, the experts.
Young People have been impassioned in their efforts to stop the cuts, talking about what youth work means to them.
So picture the scene: it’s a cold evening in Bevendean in December at the Writing and Journalism Club I run with a group of young men. It’s been a couple of weeks since getting the news about the cuts, and word has travelled fast round the estate. I’m doing my best to brush off endless questions.
“Are you gonna get the sack?” (sensitively put as always…)
“Will they close the youth centre now?”
“Will there be no more trips in the summer? What about writing club?”
That evening, I found it uncomfortable that I didn’t have any easy answers to tell the boys, but I realised that avoiding the issue was not an option, especially as the group seemed so preoccupied with the news of cuts that they couldn’t concentrate on the writing activity we were trying to do together.
The mood was already low, so I decided to not shy away from the hard reality and open up the discussion; to engage with their feelings on the subject. The moment that sticks most clearly in my head was when I asked the boys about the worst case scenario.
“What do you think will happen if the youth centres do close down and the youth workers do get sacked as you keep asking me about?”
A long pause as the lads looked at the floor. They seemed depressed and uninspired. They had that look on their faces that said, ‘It’s happening again. We’re being left out.’
After what seemed like a long moment of silence one of them piped up: “More people will take drugs.”
Another: “More vandalism around the estate, more people getting into trouble. More lads fighting.”
And another still, “We’ll just be sooooooo bored!”
This last point was quickly backed up by groans and murmurs of agreement.
It was all getting a bit doom and gloom, so we went on to talk about solutions: protests, petitions, campaigning, something which many of them ended up really getting on board with in the weeks that followed. After the session, on the bus home I was feeling a little depressed. The main thing that kept running through my head after reasoning with the boys was ‘Young people are so much smarter than people realise. And they know exactly where they are and what kind of world they live in. An investment in them is an investment in the future. Why don’t the government realise that?’
The sad truth is much of the rest of the country has already been affected by the brutal cuts made to public services as a response to the banking crisis back in 2008. Having spent seven years working with young Londoners in some of the most marginalised and violent parts of the city, I have seen with my own eyes the effects cuts to youth services have had in areas where people are already struggling.
In marginalised parts of London like Tower Hamlets, Hackney, Islington and Lewisham where youth services were cut between 2010 and 2015, there has been an increase in street violence, antisocial behaviour, and a spike in incidents of knife crime and murder amongst young people. It’s a cautionary tale that we shouldn’t be closing our eyes to, and councillors making decision to cut youth services anywhere should be made aware of this information and evidence, and deterred by it. Cuts may ‘save’ money in the short term, but in the long term the effects of cutting youth services can mean more young people making bad decisions that result in drug use, prison time, or violence; all of this comes in at an immeasurable cost to both government budgets and society as a whole.
The last thing I want to say is this. The moment a legislation is made by councillors in boardrooms to take this type of decision is very different from the numerous moments which happens as consequence when the cuts begin to take effect. The first is a bureaucratic decision involving speculation, documents, number crunching and power point presentations that can all be early read, signed off and ‘justified’. The moment when a young person sees a door close to them, which was once open, is harder to measure, but much more devastating.
Last Autumn, Lewin Kjaer joined our youth team as a youth activities worker. Since then, he has been working in youth centres in some of the most disadvantaged areas of Brighton & Hove. Following the recent threats to youth funding, Lewin felt compelled to write this heartfelt piece about the difficulties young people face today, the important differences between youth workers and teachers, and how to get involved if you want to help support young people locally.
I heard someone say recently "being a teenager sucked" - this stuck with me. When I looked back and thought about it I realised - yeah, it kind of did, not all of the time, but it was tough. Whatever socioeconomic status we were born into and whatever external forces are against us, young people also have to come to terms with a realisation of identity. We are in a constant state of becoming, and for young people it’s very present. Questions we all deal with in life are answered quickly and definitely in youth; those moments when you think ‘this is who I am, this is how I’m going to be’. They may be impermanent answers but the effects on their actions can be strong. If these conclusions are influenced largely by our communities and neighbourhoods then there needs to be positive forces at work there, otherwise any negativity that fosters in these critical years can cause further conflict later on.
When I first started working with young people I thought, ‘I can do this – I remember what it’s like to be a young person, I can relate’.
This is a good start and I’ve come to realise that, although important, it goes deeper than just being a likable person. Young people need understanding and grounded youth workers who they can trust. With that, boundaries are more likely to be respected and they can begin to feel comfortable and engaged in a community setting. By boundaries I mean ways of communicating and interacting with each other - codes of conduct that promote a safe and sound environment, however, they’re often seen as walls that prohibit fun and limit creativity and expression, the authorities of them can often be ridiculed and disrespected.
In institutions like schools where teachers are saturated with high class numbers and nationalised targets, boundaries can come across as generic, irrelevant and uninteresting. Young people are penalised and punished for displaying challenging behaviour while the causes of it are left for the young person to deal with. This is where youth workers can play an important role in young people’s education and development.
Working in youth clubs around Brighton with TDC I’ve experienced challenging behaviour from young people who are disillusioned from, and let down by, the education system. At times they come to youth club and vent their frustration or try to rebel against the boundaries that are put in place.
Thankfully, I’m in a position that offers time and energy to target these frustrations and get young people to challenge their own reactions. I don’t have a specific curriculum that I need them to understand and follow, I want them to feel empowered and engaged with their community and realise that boundaries are useful tools of interaction, and when respected and valued, lead to a more harmonious social experience.
Being involved in youth work, particularly in deprived areas, has changed my impression of young people. Not that I really had prejudgments to begin with, maybe just a slight apprehension, which ultimately is down to fear. I can recall how I felt leading up to the first youth session I was involved in with TDC. I had never worked in that capacity in Brighton before and I was feeling nervous; it’s the fear of the unknown - something some of you may feel when approaching a group of young people on the street. However, once arriving, all nerves went out the window, the members were open and accepting towards me. I looked around the small space and realised the value of it.
I’m reminded of its value each week the sessions run; members always turn up early, they’re usually playing outside before I turn up and I know they look forward to being inside the club.
A great thing about youth clubs is that members of the community, as youth workers, have the opportunity to be positive role models. Working closely and forming strong bonds with young people, as well as helping facilitate strong bonds between them creates a spirit of fellowship, respect and ultimately love rather than fear and intolerance. Youth clubs aren’t just a place to hang out; they can be the missing link, the haven for young people who have nowhere else to go. As a youth worker I’ve seen the benefits of it, simply by spending time listening and offering insight or a new approach to looking at a situation.
Young people who live in some of the most deprived and high crime areas have told me what benefits it has had for them, how they have changed by simply engaging with other people in their community and with new ways of thinking, they have told me how they now feel socially responsible and want to give back to their communities – how amazing is that!
Sadly the future of youth clubs and youth work is under threat - in Brighton with the proposed cuts, small refuges like the ones in Coldean and Craven vale, where I work, may have to close. This is a huge sacrifice when young people are now more vulnerable than ever. New trends developing in schools and on social media are distracting them from realising their true potential. Guidance is necessary, and youth clubs offer the perfect platform.
Getting involved is a great way to integrate with your community. If you’re reading this and feel it’s something you might be interested in, why not find out where your nearest youth club is and ask about volunteering opportunities. You may feel nervous like I did on my first day, but I assure you that the experience is a progressive and fulfilling one. Go for it!
Help us make a difference
The cuts to youth services are a huge threat to the young people of our city. With your support, we can continue to stand up for them.
Sign the petition telling the council "Invest in our City’s future!"
Use the hashtag #protectyouthservices to make some noise about the impact of the cuts
Young people of Brighton and Hove march together at a peaceful demonstration against planned youth work cuts in 2017, which will mean the loss of vital services for them.
For every £1 we spend on youth work in the city, TDC, as part of the Youth Collective, calculate a saving to Brighton and Hove Council of £5.56 further down the line. Young kids who are being bullied; struggling with eating disorders; battling mental health issues; suffering abuse at home; dropping out of school; thinking about drugs or alcohol; self-harming; risk taking; feeling suicidal… these problems don’t just disappear as you get older, they turn into much bigger problems that cost the Council at least 5.5 times more to manage.
Wild Park Festival – bring sports and healthy activity to deprived parts of Brighton & Hove
And that’s just the finances – what about the cost to society? Youth work is a pre-emptive measure against many of cities larger problems with drugs, alcohol, street sleeping, crime…. Without it, Brighton and Hove’s future starts to look very bleak.
We also lose a huge swathe of young people, denied the opportunities that would help them realise a better future.
What’s the problem then?
The Council commissions the Youth Collective, a group of 11 voluntary and community organisations that includes TDC, to deliver youth work across the city.
The recent draft budget, released a couple of weeks ago, slashes the figures for youth services from £1m to £200,000, but more specifically, cuts the commission for voluntary sector services – the Youth Collective, by 100%. It is catastrophic news for the 3000 people currently supported by the combined group, who benefit from youth work in many ways.
Young people face an uncertain future
It is also shattering for TDC – in our last financial year, 78% of TDC’s youth funding came from the Council via the Youth Collective.
What about other funding?
There are other grants and fundraising opportunities available for youth work – and we are constantly looking for new pots of money – but many of our applications are successful because funders can see that we have the Council investment. In fact, the Youth Collective have calculated that for every £1 received in commissions from the local authority, we can leverage a similar investment from other funders like Children in Need, Big Lottery or Comic Relief. That doubles the amount we can spend, but also makes the current situation even harder to stomach.
TDC young champions take to the skies
There is, of course, individual and business fundraising. It was fantastic to join forces with British Airways i360 earlier in the year – and they will hopefully help us raise more support and funds over the coming year. We are also making changes to our website so that it is easier for people to fundraise for us, as well as clearer for them to see the impact of our work.
How does youth work impact on young people?
Youth work has been around since the early 1800’s. It sets out to support and educate young people about things that are important and relevant to them. These are often areas which are not covered in school curriculum, but are arguably more important if young people are to make sense of their current situation.
“We know that bespoke, personalised curricula built around what’s going on for someone at a particular time in their lives is an effective way to use education as a support mechanism. We know that having a meaningful and congruent relationship between ‘educator’ and ‘learner’ has profound and lasting results.”
Adam Muirhead, Youth Project Manager
Groups will lose their base, their support network, their access to services and funding… it is enormously damaging
In today’s climate, children have complex needs. Mental health issues are on the rise, self-harming and eating disorders are common-place, alcohol and drugs are easily accessed, gang culture continues to creep into the most disadvantaged areas and, in the areas TDC works, 1 in 3 children are living in poverty. TDC youth workers go out onto the streets to talk to young people, identify their needs and help them to address their problems. We offer training, support, counselling, guidance – whatever they need to help them take control of their own lives.
How do TDC practice youth work?
Choose youth rally group lobbying for services
TDC have worked with the young people of Brighton and Hove for over a decade, achieving some incredible things in that time; a multi-award winning social enterprise set up and run by teenagers which funds an entire summer programme each year worth £5,000. A young journalists’ group who have been trained at the Guardian HQ in London and have lobbied their MP in Westminster. A young women’s group who have gained formal accreditation for their publically-exhibited artwork challenging negative body stereotypes for women. We supported young people to distribute £20,000 to local youth projects, as voted on by the beneficiaries themselves.
We following these guidelines:
Young people engage with us voluntarily – we do not force anyone to work with us
Young people are the main focus – it’s the best outcome for them that we are concerned with (not their parents, their school or anyone else)
We work with empathy, congruence and unconditional positive regard for our young people
We support equality of opportunity, working for a fairer society where young people’s voices are heard and taken into account
What will happen if funding is lost?
“All the years of cumulative relationships with young people, their families and the rest of the community; all the future work not yet achieved; all the work we have done and the changes we have made, it is all under threat now because the city cannot afford to fund it.
Brighton & Hove City Council is under huge pressure to make some terrible cuts but we are urging, for the sake of the young people we work with, that they do not make the drastic cuts proposed. Please stand with the City’s young people on this issue and ask your local Councillor for an amendment to these cuts in the February budget. For more information, please listen to my interview on Radio Free Brighton with Davy Jones.
Please also consider signing this petition started by a local young woman that today passed 1,000 signatures!
Each year, Community Works celebrates community groups and voluntary organisations in Brighton & Hove with their annual Sector Star Awards. The awards are a way of recognising and thanking individuals and organisations for all their dedication, hard work and enthusiasm.
We are very proud to let you know that two members of the TDC team won awards this year!
Kirsty Walker, TDC Project manager came joint in the Most effective Community Works Rep category along with Jess Sumner, of our Dementia Action Alliance partners Age UK Brighton & Hove. The award recognises their consistent excellence in representing the voluntary and community sector over a number of years.
Kirsty Walker – Winner: Most effective Community Works Rep
And Jordan Back won an award for Outstanding Volunteering Contribution: Young People. Jordan has made a huge contribution as a volunteer at TDC through his hard work and dedication.
Jordan Back – Winner: Outstanding Volunteering Contribution: Young People.
Well done Kirsty and Jordan!
We were also delighted to see so many of our friends and partners recognised in the ceremony…
Brighton Table Tennis Club who our community development worker Sue Sayers has collaborated with locally on older people’s projects
Sussex Interpreting Serviceswho we work very closely with – they provide interpreting and translation for the BME events and also support us with our BME engagement consultations.
The Lucky Dip fair – Hollingdean community development worker Liz Lee worked with local people to set this up.
And finally, our friends at Brighton & Hove Bus and Coach Company who have sponsored our calendar for many years and who have always been very supportive of what we do.
Congratulations to every single winner – each award was very well deserved and a great chance to celebrate some of the fantastic people doing good things right across our city!
For the past 30 years in the UK, October has been designated Black History Month (BHM). This has traditionally been a time in which people of black African and Caribbean heritage stage events and hold activities highlighting the historical, cultural and social contributions made by black people to the UK and beyond. In recent years this month of celebrations has also included contributions made to the UK of people from Asian, Arabic and far eastern backgrounds.
On Sunday 30th October, Brighton Museum and Art Gallery’s Africa Arts Festival, held a Family Day Celebration as part of Brighton and Hove’s Black History Month.
The event literally started with a bang! albeit a highly rhythmic one as a trio from Djembe Thunder (a West African Drumming ensemble) led a procession from Brighton Dome around the Museum Gardens and back. The procession concluded in Museum’s Café Bar with a thunderous finale. There after throughout the day there was singing, storytelling, dressing up, dance workshops, print-making, sewing and much more. Esteemed national poets Grace Nichols and John Agard regaled an attentive audience with some beguiling poetry. Brighton’s Bert Williams gave a fascinating tale set in the 17th century about a young African boy saved from a life of slavery by a British naval officer who came to live in Brighton. The day ended with a high energy Zumba session, that had many of us eager to joint in.
This was a vastly successful event, superbly organisations that attracted a very large number of people from all walks of life and cultural/social backgrounds.
Trust for Developing Communities (TDC) was invited to have a stall at the event to highlight our work with culturally and ethnically diverse communities and groups. One of our major projects with these local groups focuses on promoting the everyday benefits of maintaining wellbeing and looking after one’s mental health. Our work in this areas seeks to tackle stigma commonly associated with mental ill health and to ensure all who would benefit from support to maintain good mental health or address existing mental health problems know where they can get help and how to access it.
As the Community Development Worker leading on our work in this area, attending this event was a great opportunity to talk with people in a convivial atmosphere and environment about a subject that is not always easy to raise. Although this was a ‘family fun’ event it was encouraging to note how many people came up to our stall and were prepared to enter into conversation about wellbeing and mental health. This was a wholly enjoyable day, a great way to work and get our messages out.
