Positive about young people
January 2009
For those who recognise the value of the play and learning that young people do outside school, the long summer holidays should, in theory, provide an ideal opportunity to undertake some interesting and rewarding activities. But for teenagers with limited resources, few developed interests and a lack of family support, the summer weeks can pass in interminable boredom. So, what difference can support offered by the Government in the form of Positive Activities for Young People (PAYP) make?
PAYP began life in 2003, a Government programme designed to support young people, particularly those most at risk of social exclusion and committing crime, to avoid getting into trouble over the summer months. Each local authority was funded to provide a range of activities, in collaboration with the local Connexions Partnership as well as the youth service, Youth Offending Teams and voluntary organisations.
Activities included sports (from football and netball to canoeing, climbing and abseiling), arts (including crafts, design, music, dance, drama and video), and education and personal development (eg alcohol abuse, sexual health, drugs, careers, citizenship and volunteering).
Initially the PAYP programme ran for three years, providing evidence of increased school attendance after structured holiday activity, reduced youth crime, and improved community cohesion. A DCSF (Department for Children, Schools and Families) study also found a very strong positive correlation between PAYP and educational attainment in school.
Since then, PAYP has gone from strength to strength, with £46.5m Government funding in 2007/08 (compared with £25m in 2003/04), and a pledge to double this to £94m in 2010/11. Many local authorities have extended the provision of positive, structured activities to Christmas and Easter holidays, and some now offer termtime activities as well.
“PAYP is an idea whose day has come,” says Anne Weinstock, Director of the Youth Task Force, who played a leading role in shaping the Government’s 10-year strategy for positive activities, ‘Aiming High for Young People’, launched in July 2007. Taking part in these kinds of activities is a way of “building the emotional muscle that allows you to confront setbacks, to get through traumas,” she says.
“Many of the young people I’ve worked with have grown up in neighbourhoods where they’re not taught about teams – everyone is fighting for survival, in literal and metaphorical ways, and many have strong feelings of racism which are just born of ignorance. Being involved in structured activities (particularly when they’re residential) helps them to learn to respect people from different communities. They learn to be part of a team, and some may learn skills of leadership; quite a number of these young people end up working as youth professionals.”
The activities may be what hook the young people into the programme - the chance of a free trip to Thorpe Park, a camping holiday, a day’s kayaking – but they are not in themselves the real value of PAYP. Dr Nadia Wager, Principal Lecturer in Criminal Psychology at Bucks New University, carried out an evaluation of Buckinghamshire’s PAYP programme in 2007, observing activities such as a very successful motor mechanics course for teenagers, some of whom had been convicted of joy-riding offences or excluded from school. “The key thing was not so much the skills they were learning, but the role models, the relationships they made with the people working there. It was a very structured environment, with real respect and trust - and these young people were treated with respect, some probably for the first time in their life,” she explains.
Although PAYP programmes are open to all young people aged 8 to 19 years old, they focus on the more vulnerable (who may be referred to them by Youth Offending Teams, Connexions or behaviour improvement programmes in schools), with local authorities also funding ‘key workers’ to spend time and build relationships with those most at risk.
Buckinghamshire, for example, funds five full-time key workers, each with a caseload of 30 young people, whom they may see one-to-one or in small groups on a weekly basis. “If you’re 15 and you’re not very good academically, a lot of youngsters feel like giving up,” says Philmore Miller, a key worker. “We try to motivate them, to provide some sort of hope. Sometimes you become the more rational adult in their life – because they may not have that at home.”
“Trying to put your own point of view across is not always the best way,” says Shahid Akhtar, another key worker. “You have to work with them in a way that suits their lifestyle and not be too imposing.” Indeed, giving them plenty of choice – choosing activities, choosing how to organise themselves – is crucial, and may not be something they will all have experienced in school. “Some of these young people have never been away from their neighbourhood and the idea of choice is alien to them,” says Anne Weinstock. “But having choice teaches you about other choices you can make, eg you can choose whether you get involved in a gang or in substance abuse.”
Giving these vulnerable young people a voice is important too; knowing that what they say matters. “You need to take their point of view,” emphasises Julianne Hall, a Bucks key worker. “At times you may not be able to deliver everything they’d like, but they need to feel they’re being listened to and not ignored.”
Building a rapport with an adult through out-of-school activities can only help young people to get on better with their teachers in school, according to Dr Felicity Wikeley, Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of Bath, who conducted a report on out-of-school activities for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in 2007. “All the young people we surveyed had a very different view of the adults involved in out-of-school activities than they did of their teachers (even if it was the same person), and their engagement was very different. Children who get the opportunity to work with adults in a different way can negotiate relationships with teachers more easily, because they have a better understanding of how to negotiate with adults.”
Anne Weinstock’s hope is that programmes such as PAYP, as well as the development of extended schools over the next few years, the Building Schools for the Future programme and the new diplomas, will all help to bring teachers, young people, members of the community and other professionals closer together and ease the cultural divide. “I hope it will build bridges,” she says. “Things are changing already, and they will continue to do so.”
A case study: Pennywell Youth Project, Sunderland
At 14, Sophie Smith was not getting on well in school and was spending a lot of time “sitting about on street corners”. Then she and her friends were approached by youth workers from the Pennywell Youth Project, and began to take part in holiday activities, such as climbing, gorge-walking and bowling. At 16, she left school and worked as a volunteer with the project. Now aged 25, Sophie is a youth worker at the Pennywell Youth Centre and is studying for a Certificate of Education so that she can teach there.
Getting involved in the project, she says, “changed the way I thought about things, and where I was going. The activities helped us to become engaged and the youth workers were really friendly, they helped you do anything you wanted to do.”
Gordon Langley, Pennywell Director, believes part of the project’s success is finding activities that young people want to do that involve “lots of conversation”, such as bike riding, building rafts and sitting round a camp fire. Activities need not be expensive, and can work much better in groups no bigger than 12, he says, so that young people can discuss things and build new friendships.
Listening to what young people want is also crucial, he says, “and you need to act quickly on their suggestions”. The Pennywell Youth Centre was built five years ago, after much consultation with young people, and was officially opened by them. It now includes a pet shop, garden centre and café, providing opportunities for work experience. About 100 young people use the centre every day, and in five years there has been no graffiti or vandalism.
“We have to have some boundaries,” says Gordon Langley. “We have two rules here: you must enjoy yourself, and you must not mess about.”