Youth Work Programme
I have got more confident about hairdressing… I would like to continue doing hairdressing. I surprised myself that I was able to be accepted into a college and fit in with everyone. I would like to go back to college and do another course.Aged 16
Youth Work Programme
Youth Work Programme
LGTU have been providing training courses for young Travellers aged 15 – 19; since 2002.
We know from our work with young Travellers over the years that they reach adulthood with very few choices and much unfulfilled potential. A major block to this is their low levels of education, and we are totally committed to all efforts to maintain young Travellers attendance at school or college, and regard this as a framework within which we work.
Young Travellers with whom we have worked, and who have left our groups at 15 years, continue to ask for, and need, continued contact and support from LGTU youth workers. Feedback from these young people shows that they really want an age- appropriate programme of activities, life skills and vocational/taster training to support them in the transition to adulthood, helping to alleviate boredom and loss of direction.
They want skills they can use within their own community; employment; courses that engage them immediately and don’t focus on their lower levels of literacy, and training providers who understand something about their specific needs and cultural constraints.
Our training programmes started with a group of 6 young men who had been involved in our youth group but were now at a loose end and hence got involved in petty crime. We worked in partnership with youth offending teams, Traveller education and Traveller Social work teams to put on a training programme in landscape gardening. This was a success, with all of the young people completing the course and two of them going to work in that field.
Number of young travellers completing training programmes
When we started running our training programme we initially only put on taster vocational courses but found that the young people needed to improve their skills in other areas so we have now devised a whole package consisting of an eighteen week course that is divided into three different phases. We hope to use this model in the boroughs where we have established youth groups, as a progression towards college and employment.
This part of the programme aims to give the young people the ability to explore and learn things about themselves as well as the skills and knowledge they need to make informed choices about their lives.
The young people get to spend six weeks on a course of their choice with at local college or training provider. While at the college the young people are treated exactly the same as all the other students, this gives them the experience of what it like to attend college and the type of work involved.
Number of travellers going on to further education
We know from our work with young Travellers over the years that they reach adulthood with very few choices and much unfulfilled potential. A major block to this is their low levels of education, and we are totally committed to all efforts to maintain young Travellers attendance at school or college, and regard this as a framework within which we work.