Lightup Street Chat
Project Overview
This project fell principally within the definitions of outreach and detached youth work. In terms of outreach, we focused on providing information about services available to them to help them overcome the barriers they identified that were preventing them from achieving their potential.
The detached element of this work focused on meeting the young people where they were.
By taking this approach it was intended that we would fill the gap of the existing community-based youth projects in the Croydon and Haringey areas of London In the context of the young people involved in this project, many of whom may be experiencing marginalization and/or social exclusion, those who are seldom heard and those who do not commonly access and engage with services and opportunities, it was vital that, we set out to engage them in locations that they commonly frequented and felt comfortable in. Lightup volunteers and the local organizations with which we engaged before the execution of the project identified that this would mean streets and shopping centers primarily in and around Croydon and Haringey City Centre.
Projects Aims
Lottery Priorities
These aims accord with 1 and 2 of the Lottery Priorities being:
Bring people together and build strong relationships in and across communities
Help more people to reach their potential, by supporting them at the earliest possible stagE
What We Mean By Chat
For the purposes of this project, ‘Chat’ was the informal exchange of ideas by spoken words and derives from principles such as living among, familiarity and openness. For us, these ‘Chats’ had dual purposes, firstly, to act as a bridge allowing vulnerability, humour and emotion to pair with experiences and realities in a way that highlighted the humanity and human potential of the participants to identify the barriers to their personal success and secondly to provide a vehicle through which, we could share with them training on:
Mindfulness techniques
Problem-solving skills and
Goal setting
In essence the ‘Chat’ training sessions were used to help participants develop a better understanding of the issues holding them back, encourage them to participants to get more involved in searching out solutions to their problems and moving forward to set goals in life and to work towards achieving them. On this project we also aimed at signposting young people to the appropriate organisations for further support if required.
Eligibility For Inclusion In The Project
The project was limited to young people aged 10- 25 years, residing, schooling and to those who spend most of their time within Croydon and Haringey. We also aimed to ensure that at least 50% of the project beneficiaries, were from Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) groups. On analysis, 70% of the respondents identified as BAME.
What We Mean By Chat
We initially organised ‘chat’ sessions to engage with 150 young people, however, we were able to engage with 280 participants.
We anticipated at the outset that this would primarily be face-to-face, though we planned to offer telephone chats to young people who preferred to be anonymous or for those who felt more comfortable with telephone engagement for other reasons.
This project was designed for Lightup mentoring teams of 2 members at a time to go out into the community to identify target-group young people in their groups and gangs. We organised 8 major outings and sought prior permission of certain fast food restaurants to provide premises on which, we could introduce ourselves and meet with some of the young people. We had 3 outings within Haringey and 5 outings within Croydon making a total of 8 outings.
