Youthfirst Project [NI]
Age Group:Youthfirst works with young people aged 5-25 year olds. The project is split into three different age groups for each session/s, which are 5-9 year olds, 10-13 year olds and 14+.
Specific Interest Group:Our aim is to work in partnership with all young people in the Bogside area of Derry. Youthfirst also works with children from around all areas of the city on issues like bullying. We don’t judge young people we just involve them and meet their needs
How are the Children and Young People involved?
The aim of Youthfirst is to identify the needs of young people and work in partnership with them to design and develop programmes to meet their needs. We encourage young people to plan and develop their own projects where the staff and volunteers of Youthfirst will support them in achieving their goals.
Over the past number of years Young people at Youthfirst have been successful in developing and managing their own projects. Due to this success we now have an application pending with the Change UR Future funding programme with the Big lottery fund for the development of a community wide youth participation programme.
Here are some examples of our youth participation work.
Ark Park - A group of 12 teenagers approached Youthfirst looking to develop a project for parents and children under 5 as they felt their needs where not been met. The group raised over £11,000 to build a play park and run and a parent and toddler group. Young people also build the play park and developed a number of events throughout the year. The project was opened in 2000 and is still in use.
Youth Café- In 2005 a group of teenagers felt that there were no facilities for teenagers on a Friday night and many teenagers had been involved in underage drinking and petty crime. Youthfirst awarded this group £1,000 to develop a plan on how they could run a project of this type. This project has received more funding and now operates on Both Friday and Monday nights and has 35-45 users each night, which makes this are biggest group. This project is still managed by the youth and they hope to extend this to a Saturday night also.
Beat the bully – this project has been seen on Ulster television and BBC and has also won two awards. It is endorsed by Childline and Kidscape. This project was started by for teenage boys who where victims of bullying and decided that they wanted to make a change and help support other young people affected by bullying. They designed an educational board game and training packs for schools and youth clubs across Ireland and the UK. The profits from the board game offer free places on our bully camps, which again are managed and delivered by the young people. This project proves how young people can make positive changes if they are given the chance on their own. They have also set up a web site where you can learn more and watch a short video on the game please visit their site on http://www.bullypeercoach.com
Lead On - A group of 12 young people where invited to attend a training event to look at how they and other young people could get involved in leading youth activities within Youthfirst. Young people where given a small budget and staff also offered support if young people wanted to apply for other funding.Young people where given total control of the project with support from full-time staff. Young people set themselves goals and worked on achieving them. It involved 12-16 year olds. 12 young people in lead group and they recruited other young people to help. (around 30, 11-15 year olds)
Geographical Location
Derry area – Bogside and Brandywell
Do you use a specific model/guide/theme?
Goal setting gives them a clear outline and action plan
Are there any reports etc. on your project/initiative that you would like to publicise/share?
Here is an excellent example ALL PLANNED AND MANAGED BY TEENAGERS. This project has won four awards and BBC will produce a programme on this in November 2007 http://www.bullypeercoach.com
What did or what has the project/initiative achieved in terms of positive change for the organisation or/and the children and young people?
These projects have being more successful than projects developed by staff! Number of users had even increased.
Any further /additional information on your project/initiative?
We are planning to develop this project and hope that other youth providers will use our ideas as they do work.
Contacts:
Dominic Bonner
Youthfirst
32 Meenan Square
Bogside,
Derry
BT48 7QG
E-mail: dominic.bonner@talk21.com
Web: http://www.bullypeercoach.com
Tel: 028 71309079
