Race Equality Foundation - Development

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Start, the SFSC children and young people

See also:

• Amina Lone, Parent Programme Officer in the North West, explains the ongoing work taking place in Manchester and Liverpool.

Background

Research has not only identified the risk factors associated with poor outcomes for children and young people, it has also identified a range of protective factors. There are consistent findings that if protective factors (such as a strong and nurturing relationships between parents and children can be developed) the outcomes for children will be better (Graham 1996; Utting 1996; including teenagers see TSA, 1998).

The experience of the Strengthening Families, Strengthening Communities has shown that this may be particularly successful, if it is done in the context of promoting self-esteem and a positive ethnic identity. Furthermore, by aiding the development of children and young people who are socially competent and have strategies for dealing with risky situations, such as peer group pressure to be involved in crime activity we should see better outcomes for children and young people. Furthermore, we would argue, that by boosting self-esteem and social competence children and young people will play a fuller and productive role in the lives of their families and communities.

The aims of the Start programme are to engage children and young people in:

• exploring their relationships with their peers, families and their communities in order to develop supportive relationships;
• exploring their identity to develop a positive sense of themselves;
• developing their self-esteem and active citizenship skills;
• developing appropriate strategies for coping with stress and conflict;
• identifying risky behaviour and developing strategies for dealing with these, including solution building.

Start does this by using a range of methods, including providing children and young people with:

• opportunities to receive and explore information on healthy lifestyles and healthy relationships;
• exercises to understand and develop a positive self-image, including the ethnic and cultural roots;
• role play, videos and other exercise to explore strategies for dealing with stress and conflict;
• opportunities to identify community resources and how to access them.

This is combined with a specific skills based activity that allows them to put into practice their learning from the programme, such as learning a team sport; or developing skill in photography; or increasing the safety of the journey to school through an environmental project. This programme has been piloted in three areas in London and is currently being evaluated.

For further information download the Start information leaflet (42kb PDF file).

Facilitator training

The facilitator training for the Start programme takes place over three days and is open to those individuals who have already trained to be SFSC facilitators.

Further information on the programme and training is available from Amina Lone, 0161 839 9799 email amina@racefound.org.uk.