Community and living

Croydon Youth Service delivers PSHE in a number of ways throughout its clubs.

PSHE can be provided effectively in both formal and informal sessions:

• Through a formal curriculum which may be based on young people’s needs or experiences and aims to build upon their knowledge, skills and attitudes
• Informal one to one and group sessions may arise at any time and in a variety of contexts. This may include residentials, detached work, and project work and may be a reaction to an incident or as follow up work to a more formal programme. It is important to remember that youth workers can be seen as role models for young people

Croydon Youth Service works very closely on a number of projects concerning the development and delivery of PSHE. This includes work in and out of clubs. Examples of projects that the youth service have been involved with include:

• Drug education in schools. This project saw groups of pupils from various schools go to different youth centres for interactive sessions looking at different aspects of drug use. This included looking at peer pressure, the club scene and the law. This project was evaluated extremely positively and it is hoped to develop further work in this area in the future
• A residential weekend where young people were consulted on drug issues. The weekend had four key aims: to gain information and knowledge, to share experience, to develop policies, and develop experiential training for youth workers. The key findings from the weekend were that young people value the importance of drug education and would like more of a voice in shaping policies in this area
• Youth centres promote awareness of contraception through advice, information and guidance. Many projects will run sessions on contraception and safe sex including exploring attitudes, values and beliefs
• The Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Youth Group meets weekly and provides social activities, information, advice and support for young people who are lesbian, gay or bisexual. The youth worker who runs the project will also be able to offer training and support to help other agencies tackle homophobia and develop services for lesbian, gay or bisexual people. For further information phone 0777 184 5130
• The youth service is working in partnership with Croydon Public Health Service and Croydon Youth Information Counselling Service Drop In to provide 'Youth Information Boards' in several schools and youth service venues in Croydon. The boards aim to increase access to high quality information on health and social issues for all young people. The boards contain leaflets on different subjects relating to health and welfare and provide the details of local and national organisations that can help young people. The pilot project will be evaluated with a view to extending the boards throughout youth centres and schools all over Croydon
• The youth service was instrumental in helping to organise the 'Finding A Voice' conference held in Croydon. Finding A Voice is an independent body of young people which aims to give them more of a voice in influencing change around policy that affects them. The young people aim to plan and facilitate a yearly conference as well as other consultation meetings with key agencies such as Police, Education and Social Services. Past conferences have looked at issues such as drugs and sexual health and enabled young people to feed back to key decision makers what they would like in the way of access to information and services
• Teenage mothers' support groups are held at Goldcrest youth centre and Parchmore youth centre and offer creche facilities. Contact Parchmore youth centre on 020 8653 7353 or Lesley Grigg at Goldcrest youth centre on 01689 843333
• The young men's project is a programme based at Goldcrest youth centre that focuses on developing life skills with young men from Addington High School. For further details contact Mark Blackwell on 01689 843333
• The girls' work project is attached to Goldcrest youth centre and tackles issues such as self esteem, assertiveness, sexual health awareness and negotiating skills. Contact Becky Pendlebury on 01689 844420 for further information