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Supporting Young People who are at risk of disengaging from education

This term we have enjoyed starting work with over 30 new young people, delivering our Restorative Engagement Programme at Bodmin College and Truro College. Lily Reece Fraser is new to our team in the role of East Cornwall Project Worker and she has this to say about her experience of working on the project so far:

“My name is Lily and I’ve been working alongside my colleague Lucy to deliver the Restorative Engagement Programme (REP) at Bodmin and Truro College. The last month of sessions have been wonderful to carry out alongside the young people. I’ve noticed the difference these REP sessions have made for the amazing young people who attend. I can think of a handful who have gone from uncomfortably shy, unable to make eye-contact and reserved, to, 4 weeks on, being able to join in fully with fun games, and share opinions confidently during circle time, exercise their empathy and vulnerability during sessions, and really show who they are as individuals to us practitioners and their fellow classmates.

It’s been a pleasure to see the young people really start to feel comfortable sharing their opinions and thoughts. When watching short films on themes such as assumptions, prejudice and workplace expectations they’ve been able to engage in a safe space we’ve all been able to create together. Adopting a restorative lens to see other people’s perspectives through, has been very beneficial to understanding and preparing for the tricky situations and relationships they may experience in further education or at a future job. Activities like badge making and dissecting the iceberg theory, exploring their personal future goals and aspirations, letting us know what they’d like to achieve and figuring out what extra steps and support they might need to achieve that, have been some of the processes we’ve used in allowing them to envision a future for themselves. Building resilience and confidence has been something the young people have really been working on, by slowly opening up, building trust as a group, and participating more and more each session”.

This work is part of the YEP! Partnership, read more about it in the latest newsletter.