We had an anonymous box in the youth club that they could ask what ever questions they wanted, the questions were answered by the expert, he did have some rules, like not answering personal questions, which was good because the young people seemed to have taken a keen interest in the sexuality and the underwear of the workers!

It was also good to talk about associated emotional issues that go alongside Sexual Health about how they treat young women and interact with young women, i think we would like to come back to some of theses issues and look at their relationships.

Last week at the Canaan Younger session on a Monday evening we started up cooking again. It was great fun, two groups of young people (a group of young women lead the way and then a group of young men) got involved and seemed to have a great time. It was lovely to listen to them talking and showing each other what to do. Peer support is such an important aspect of young people lives and the support of good friends and the network you build can really help in later life. Some said they had learnt new skills and developed new understanding from cooking whether that be how to chop an onion to how to cook a burger (as pictured) life skills that we really help, although they will need some variety in their diet, and not too many burgers!

It was also great fun for them to share the work of their hands, with their peers. The boys were at first suspicions of getting involved but after eating all the burgers that the young women had made and deciding that they tasted great and it maybe worth a little bit of hard work to get some more, again a golden life lesson. They all also seemed to have a great time, and having fun is such an important aspect of the work for as a Youth Worker sometimes it is too easy to ‘accredit the fun’ out of the activities that young people are doing, so that activities that once were fun become boring. Here’s to having fun!!

In the de-brief after the session the young volunteer said it was the most hectic session he had ever had, but one of the most enjoyable. Lots of the young people got involved and really got in to it. 2 or 3 of the young people really enjoyed learning about how to take pictures and about lights and shutter times etc etc but most wanted to be in front of the camera striking poses. Sometimes working with young people is hilarious and watching them striking moody poses in front of the camera making sure the light is right to ensure that they get the perfect Facebook profile picture made me chuckle!

This is why we run the Canaan Project. If it were not for the Canaan Project they would not have the opportunity to learn these new skills. But actually, more importantly (we believe), they would not have the opportunity to interact with another member of their local community and learn about what they are interested in and the skills they have developed.

Howard Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligences suggests that traditional forms of education work against this development process by requiring young people to specialize too early on. He argues that in order to benefit fully from this physiological phenomenon young people should be encouraged to pursue a broad range of subjects and experiences (not just academic) until they are much older. This is something that the Canaan Project aims to support. We actively seek to offer young people experiences that they wouldn’t otherwise have whether it be jumping off a pier as part of a residential trip, visiting a workplace or playing football with a member of their community that they didn’t previously know. We believe that we are helping young people to seek stimulation in positive places and discover the building blocks for aspiration.

References

David Dobbs, 2011. Beautiful Brains. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/10/teenage-brains/dobbs-text

Howard Gardner, 2006. Multiple Intelligences: New Horizons. Basic Books.

1. A new film! For those that did not see last years This is REAL here it is. We are looking at doing another short film looking at the aspirations of young people.
2. More stories from young people about their aspirations and the hopes and dreams they may have. At the Canaan Project we are talking about more than just careers but aspirations for all aspects of life including family, friends and community.
3. More work with young volunteers. We are looking at how young people are working in their community through the Canaan Project, how they are supporting their peers, how this is developing them and how we are facilitating this.
4. We are looking to continue to develop our evening youth club sessions especially the newer one for younger, young people, with new and exciting aspects – more to be revealed later.
5. The Girls work particularly at Langdon Park will be taking on a new shape over the coming weeks and we will be posting about how that is going to work.
6. We are getting a plan together to carry on funding the project. I think financially 2012 may bring some challenges, but the quality of the work will find some funding i’m sure.
7. Oh and their is some sort of sporting event happening locally!! I think we might do something around that!

We are really excited about 2012 and are looking forward to working with young people and seeing them develop and continue to grow into the positive interdependent adults we know and believe they can be. Bring on 2012!

In order to make a decision an adult will take into consideration many different variables such as desire, rules, risks, past experience etc. This involves drawing on information from many different parts of the brain. During the teenage years the connections within and between the different parts of the brain are still developing and growing stronger which means that a young person is still learning to balance all these different variables which initially happens “clumsily”.

In my conversations with young people I can almost see this process happening and to some degree have the privilege of being part of it. A core part of what we do is listening to young people, helping them become aware of, and find words for all the different things they are thinking and feeling towards different situations they face and helping them think through the different responses available to them and weighing those responses up in light of their possible consequences. This is sophisticated stuff and isn’t learnt quickly. In fact the article suggests that these “connections” aren’t fully formed until we are 25.

As well as a reminder to be patient(!) this gives me renewed faith in the value of the work we are doing, supporting young people in their development.

References from “Beautiful Brains” by David Dobbs

There are a number of people that are not on in this picture but are of equal importance and equally contribute to the life of this amazing Charity, from funders, to website design, people that have donated their money, people that support with prayer and good will, all have a stake and make a difference to the lives of young people in Poplar East London, Thank You.

There will continue to be Blogs over the Christmas period as we love telling you about what is going through our minds!

MERRY CHRISTMAS

We have stopped our services for the Christmas period but will be back in the new year. Giving us sometime to do some reflection and review and run into the new year!

There are still going to be blogs going up over Christmas so keep reading!

Afterwards we had a brief conversation about whether we should have intervened on the informal rules of the table set up by the  young people of ‘winner stays on’ to let more people have a go, but decided against this. The young people decided the rule and implement it and none of them had a problem with Alex’s domination of the table. He provided the competition for the evening – ‘who can get Alex off the table’. Everyone had a go, leaders included. In fact I was ‘white-washed’ which means the score reached 6-0 and I was simply dismissed from the table as a waste of time!  Our instinct can sometimes be to make things so ‘fair’ that we end up trying to protect young people from experiencing loss or failure of any kind. But actually this creates a slightly false environment as outside of the walls of the youth club life is full of competition where some people are better than you at some things and you are better than them at other things. Failures and losses can also, as in the above  example, be a really motivating, driving force for improvement. The trick for us at the Canaan Project is to let this lesson be learnt in a safe environment where it is reflected upon.

This learning is another part of the process of moving from childhood and dependence to adulthood and inter-dependance. Losing at Table Tennis could hold more significance than it may first seem!

Consultation of young people is a concept thrown around in youth work circles – a lot. Yesterday we had a great discussion at the Canaan Project about it and these are some of our thoughts:

1. We need to improve our consultation and how we record the thoughts of young people in our services.
2. Having a Youth Forum or Youth Advisory Board does not always constitute consultation of all young people. It is normally the confident and articulate young people that are on those boards and in our experience this does not guarantee that the variety of views held by the wider population of young people are heard. At worst Youth Boards/Forums can be ‘tick box’ exercise for youth workers that need to evidence consultation. Saying all that they are not always a bad place to start either.
3. As professional youth workers we believe that listening to the voice of young people and allowing this to inform and shape our work on an ongoing basis is an essential part of our work with them (this is reflected in the Canaan Project mission: working ‘with’ young people rather than ‘on’ them). This is a much more integrated, fluid approach to consultation.
4. I also sometimes wonder if we expect too much from consultation. We are working with young people because they are young people moving from dependance to inter-dependance and as part of that process you are learning about what you want, what you believe and what you might think about things. You have not reached adulthood and your ability to process options is different (I read about this in National Geographic - a very interesting article about the development of the adolescent brain). We should help them on this process of discovery about what they believe, think, value through the tool of consultation, but allowing them to dictate everything as some consultation does, I’m unsure about. As part of this development there is learning about responsibility, so if I say ‘I want to go giraffe hunting in the Africa’ then I am aware of some of the effort involved in making this happen, but if we say to young people ‘what do you want?’ and they respond as we have asked them to, then they have no concept of the effort required or needed. I think this impacts on the learning of the young people, does this mean I can go through life shouting about what I want and get it or at least expect it. We have seen this scenario play out. It does happen.
5. Something we do at the Canaan Project is have a group of young volunteers that have come through the club (although i am not always very sure they are representative of the variety of young people we see, they certainly give a slice of the picture). These young volunteers take part in our briefing meetings before sessions feeding into the targets and goals for the session. They are also part of the de-brief at the end where we feedback on sessions and what was good or bad. They have an input but also share responsibility for making the sessions successful.
6. We have plenty of work to do at the Canaan Project on consultation, it is a complicated, multi-faceted process. But we are on the journey!