As lockdown drags on and deepens, Youth worker Hannah Woods says we all need to create safe spaces for ourselves and our loved ones. As we started Lockdown 3.0, I was filled with so many emotions (I’m sure we all were!) Then school closures were announced. Anxiety, fear, claustrophobia – the thought of home schooling …
BY CHARLOTTE PEARSON-MILES One unexpected silver lining of moving our Oxford-based youth work online has been the greater contact we’ve had with parents (who have had to fill out parental consent forms and help children access our Zoom groups safely). Pre-lockdown, much of Doorsteps’ youth work took place via school. We were well placed to …
Walking alongside and empowering a young person is an invested journey, with plenty of ups and downs, says youth worker Hannah Woods. During library lessons, I regularly read with young people to get to know them and identify who might benefit from youth work contact in future. It was during this time that a Year …
BY ELEANOR SIMPSON From singing with toddlers to eating two great big scoops of Banoffee ice cream with a local boys’ group… These are two of the events I was fortunate enough to attend run by Doorsteps, Viva’s partner network in Oxford, which creates partnerships of hope for children and young people in Oxford and …
BY EMMA STONEHOUSE I had the privilege of going to one of the taster sessions for next year’s Find Your Fire youth programme which starts in September. We took a group of eight young people from a local secondary school out of East Oxford and into the woodland: to make dens, whittle sticks, eat a …
BY MIKE MACLENNAN God blesses us, we are fearfully and wonderfully made. Isn’t that an incredible truth? God has made each of us unique. Viva has partnered with others in Oxford to work to fulfil the plans God has for young people here. PIG… that was a knock to my self-esteem when I visited a …
BY ANDREW DUBOCK The mental health challenges of our children and young people can feel like a hopeless situation. One in eight 5 to 19 year olds has a diagnosable mental health condition, yet only a quarter of these have had contact with specialists in the past year. This statistic, released by NHS Digital in …
Andy Jefferson asks: how do we protect our young people from those who would exploit them? The challenge of tackling exploitation can seem daunting. When we hear stories of young people being groomed or taken advantage of in some way, it can make our stomachs turn. And, as a youth worker, it can be heart-breaking …
BY HANNAH BARR There’s an old episode of ‘The Woodentops’ in which the twins, Willy and Jenny, are washing their hands for dinner and start singing their own song with the lyrics, “What shall we have for dinner today? Sawdust and hay for dinner today!” I was reminded of this story as we took a …
BY HANNAH BARR Another year and another cohort of young people have completed ‘Find your fire’, Doorsteps’ ten-month programme for helping young people at risk of disengaging identify what they are good at, what they feel passionately about, to attach value to those things, and help them look at ways of developing in them. Sarah …