Find Your Fire – Doorsteps Youth Work – Under 5s Provision – Supporting Churches – Doorsteps Blog
Doorsteps Youth Work aims to protect and empower young people, meeting them where they’re at, supporting them when they need it, and seeing them through some of the most important years of their lives.
We are in East Oxford schools, working closely with their pastoral staff to provide the highest possible youth work and safeguarding practices.
WHAT WE DO
1. In-School Work
We work in two East Oxford schools offering pastoral care from Year 7 -Year 13. This takes the form of:
- Library Lessons where our Lead Youth Worker will work with 60 young people a week, 10 intensively, building relationships and potentially identifying problems not yet picked up by the school, such as SEN, safeguarding or issues affecting wellbeing.
- Detached Work, the objective of which is to keep relationships going with young people, offering pastoral support, and meeting new young people because it offers a safe environment and a non-judgmental person to confide in.
- Recharge Workshops run in conjunction with the school nurse aimed to combat the ‘winter blues,’ which reached 25 young people and will be repeated each January.
- Mentoring, usually delivered in six-week blocks, with the aim of involving the young person in existing work or managing the transition of mentoring sessions to once every half term.
2. Group Activities
Groups are formed through conversation with the young people and what they would like to do and grow in. Current groups include:
- Boys’ Book Club for Years 7-8 where 8 young people creatively engage with books and stories, developing confidence, social skills and effective communication skills; they also develop their creativity which current research suggests is good for their mental wellbeing.
- Forest Club for 8 Year 7 boys with 4 Year 9 young leaders which helps young people connect with nature, which has proven links to improving wellbeing. We look at building things, creating art with nature and basic survival skills. Forest Club helps cultivate group work skills and communication skills and helps young people find behavioural management techniques, resulting in improved focus in the classroom.
- Creative Café for 8 girls in Years 8-11: a group designed for girls who need support with social skills, anxiety, or other wellbeing complications, to increase confidence and communication skills.
- Trips to augment the group activities, also to build relationships with young people’s parents/guardians which happens when you take young people out of the school environment. Spending time with young people out of the normal context helps deepen relationships which then increases how much social capital a youth worker has to support a young person.
3. Youth Workers’ Network
Youth work can be an isolating job. In East Oxford, there is now a really strong group of youth workers in various contexts working to support local young people. We hold regular prayer and social events for youth workers to connect with one another, share ideas, and support each other.
Click here to see our latest East Oxford Youth Work prayer and news update.
Click here to email us and request to receive it.