364 young people connect with new detached youth work project

 

Since beginning our Catalyst Programme on 1st October 2011 we have made contact with over 364 young people. They have come onto the youth bus, spent time with our staff, some have even built up relationships with our staff and the PCSOs who also work on the bus. Some young people are so keen to spend time with our staff and on the bus that they will attend 2 sessions a week walking from one area to another in order to reach us!

This area of work is a development of one of our earliest programmes, Shift, which saw us out on Fridays during the summer months in parks in South Manchester. However thanks to funding from Greater Manchester Police and Manchester City Council we are now out 5 nights per week, all year round. We have taken on 8 more staff to help with the running of Catalyst and Rachel Strafford is overseeing the project in her new role as Community Partnerships Manager. Every night we take the Police Resource Bus which is a compact mobile youth centre into an area and spend 2 hours just chatting to those who are around, inviting them onto the bus for games, creative projects and a place to relax. We always have a PCSO with us and really value the opportunity that this gives to help break down barriers between the police and young people.

Our target for the whole programme was to meet connect with 500 young people over the course of 20 months and within 3 we are almost there.

Currently the teams are working in Wythenshawe, Didsbury, Northenden, Withington and Chorlton - each team is sent to a location within that area where there have been reports of anti-social behavior.

Following a recent meeting with the police they are thrilled with the way the project has been going and ideally would like to see us out even more!

In the new year we will be officially launching Catalyst in partnership with the police, more information will be available soon.