The Youth Development Project is embarking on an exciting new piece of intergenerational work with St Pauls Church in North Marylebone. We will be working to build positive relationships between older and younger people that live in Church Street Estate and Lisson Street Estate. The project will bring these two groups together to assist them in working towards a celebration led and planned by the participants.

YDPDL is doing this with the expertise and assistance of The Childrens Society’s Greenwich Intergenerational Project. The project has had great success running intergenerational work on Greenwich estates.

This is the first time we have done this work with a Church, an ideal place for intergen work. The Church is a great example of how older and young people can work together to create a loving community. However it still suffers from misunderstandings between the generations.

Sadly it is often the case that young people think that older people don’t like them, or assume that they want to cause trouble. At the same time older people worry that they won’t be listened to or young people will find them boring.

“Now I understand older people more. I’m more considerate towards them – they’re not different, they’ve the same issues as us”.

Young person, Glyndon Estate, Greenwich

Intergen work brings the two groups together and encourages them to think about what they can learn from other generations. We work with each group separately to help them start thinking about the other generation, their lives and experiences. The groups then come together and to explore their commonalities and share skills.

One of the encouraging results is that different generations discover what they have in common. In Greenwich older people realised that many young people share their concerns of community safety and that not all young people hang around causing trouble.

I am excited to see what the different generations will learn from each other in Marylebone. The project will run for six months but I hope it will build new and lasting relationships between different generations.

Perhaps your Church or community would like to embark on some intergen work? Get some older and younger people together and try this activity. Or if you’d like to explore this idea further get in touch.

I met with Martin Stewart from Streetspace to find out about the project and how he can support Churches with detached youth work. If you would like to work with Streetspace contact Martin by e: martin (Email: martin [at] urbanhope.co.uk).

Intro to you (your background, how you came to Streetspace)

When people ask me where I am from I have to decide whether to give the short or long version. I’m not alone in having a different background but mine is not average. So here we go. I was born in Scotland but lived in Pakistan for the first half of my life, because my parents were missionaries out there for 20 years. We then moved from living in the Himalayas to a small coastal town on the Wirral in the north west of England. My next move was to south London, here I cut my teeth doing estate-based youth work for several years. Now I have ventured north of the river to be based in Islington at Urban Hope and work for Streetspace across London. I am passionate about engaging in high quality youth work focused around developing purposeful relationships with young people. To be able to be a part of a team that works in this way is great but also to be part of an organisation like Streetspace that helps others do the same is very exciting. [Read more...]

The Bishop of London at last year's Go for Gold awards

On Tuesday 25 September the young grant makers and the youth advisory group members of the Go For Gold (G4G) award scheme met with me at a burger bar venue in Hackney Central. G4G is an exciting and innovative awards scheme run by young people for young people. Groups can apply for a G4G award for up to £500. Our young people’s advisory panel manages how the money is awarded.

This was my second week in the job and I was keen to meet with the young people. In order to help with introductions and new beginnings Meg Moore, the last Participation Worker, came along. This was much appreciated by all involved, particularly me.

After food had been ordered, a process that took about half an hour due to the laid back manner of the person serving, it was time for bit of an ice breaker. Each person had to name the most embarrassing thing that has happened to them. I kicked off with this and soon everyone was having a go. Suffice to say that mine and Meg’s confessions were more embarrassing than the young people’s. Either they are too cool for embarrassing incidents or they were holding back!

It quickly became clear that they are one cool group of young people with fantastic ideas and views on how the project should run. Some of the issues that were discussed and resolved were: how to involve more young people on the panel, venue for monthly meetings and the Christmas outing. After the meeting I had a much clearer idea of what the project was about and what was expected of me. I left feeling much lighter and impressed with the commitment and enthusiasm showed by all the young people.

One of the other main issues discussed was the low number of applications that had been received from projects. It was decided that the deadline should be extended and that I would do a phone round of all people who had shown an interest. It was then decided that the young people would meet with me to look at applications during the October half term holiday.

What Now?

This means that projects now have a few more weeks in which to make an application. In order to do so they can contact me by phone on 020 7932 1126 or email me at Louise.paine-davey (Email: Louise.paine-davey [at] childrenssociety.org.uk) . I will then send out an application pack. Please also feel free to contact me for information re filling out an application. Final deadline is 26 October 2012.

The Go for Gold awards are an exciting and empowering opportunity for young people. It’s a brilliant way of helping young people to engage in something positive and rewarding for their communities. The panel of young people who assess the grants will also be recruiting new members in the next few weeks.

Please distribute this to anyone that you think maybe interested. If you have any questions, contact Meg Moore (Email: meg.moore [at] childrenssociety.org.uk), Participation Worker, Youth Development Project of the Diocese of London.

For information about last year’s awards, see our news item.

This collection of interviews, top tips and advice will inspire you to set up, expand or develop youth work in your parish. ‘Be Inspired’ is a great source of inspiration showing how youth leaders and volunteers in the Diocese have developed their vision and mission for young people often overcoming challenges along the way.

For support or more information on the issues, resources discussed in the booklet please contact the Youth Development Team on 020 7932 1125 or email YDPDL (Email: YDPDL [at] childrenssociety.org.uk).

Download the Be Inspired booklet from www.london.anglican.org/youth-ministry.