Get in Youth!
Every week during term time a group of young people meet up with our team on the Heath. One thing they share in common is their struggle with school attendance. Earlier this year Heath Hands successfully applied for funding from Natural England to run a pilot youth wellbeing project, called ‘InYouth’. We’ve been running it along the lines of a green social prescribing project, bringing together forest school style activities and nature art sessions with our habitat and conservation work. These sessions are designed to give young people who suffer from social anxiety a chance to benefit from being on the Heath whilst socialising with others and learning new skills. Some of these isolated teenagers had never visited Hampstead Heath before and were blown away by the view from Parliament Hill from where they could see their block of flats.
We regularly ask InYouth participants what their interests are and build on this as far as possible. To date we've offered them an interesting menu of activities including therapeutic gardening, tree and butterfly identification walks, knife whittling, leaf mandala making and bushcraft skills. Some weeks we've headed out to conservation areas where they've enjoyed fire making or experimenting with marshmallow and Jaffa cake s'mores! Building bat boxes and garden planters has helped these teenagers to develop woodworking skills, but more importantly given them a chance to work alongside others in a non-threatening environment.
‘M’ said he’d enjoyed “building the batboxes and chopping the wood… the whole experience. It gave me a sense of accomplishment.” These experiences can help a young person positively reframe their future, opening them up to ideas of a career in conservation.
A local secondary school identified young people who they felt could benefit from these meet-ups other teenagers joined us independently. Whilst it's hard to measure the concrete benefits for our young volunteers, at the same time it's been heartwarming watching them grow in confidence, developing friendships and also becoming peer supporters for each other.
Youth group getting active
Youth work on Parliament Hill
Feedback
Feedback from schools and parents further highlights the success of this programme. One parent wrote: “P” really enjoyed the project and went off very happily to you every Friday morning. He learnt several new skills and got a lot out of the small group sessions. I have noticed that he now seems more confident talking to adults that he is not familiar with.”
Whilst Lisa Driscoll, the Assistant Headteacher at Regent High shared that:
“Feedback from parents has also been positive as they have noticed an increased willingness to attend school from their children.” She went on to explain that:
“All of the students involved have been extremely positive about their experience and have been keen to share what they’ve been learning when they return to school on a Friday afternoon – they’ve reported feeling more confident in general and excited for Fridays specifically, citing the physical activities as being particularly enjoyable. One student is now engaging in other extra-curricular activities in school when they previously spent time with an adult at break and lunchtime.”
Find out more
If you want to find out more information on our ‘InYouth’ project, then click here .Also for more information on Heath Hands led youth programs click here. If you would like to support this project become a Friend of Heath Hands, donate or why not volunteer as a session leader.
