Case studies
Back to previous pagePositive Futures in Salford
There’s a sign on the outside wall of a house in Salford, just off the northern edge of the Seedley and Langworthy neighbourhood. "Sod the dog, beware of the kids," it warns.With its long rows of red brick, back-to-back houses, Seedley seems like a place from a different time. A square mile of narrow terraces, it could almost be a Victorian film set, but for the scattering of cheap cars, and the jeans and trainers worn by young mums pushing prams along its drizzle-drenched pavements.
This is Lowry-land. But far from his vision of dogs, clogs and hoop-chasing youngsters, these streets are a picture of urban decline. For every set of neat net curtains, still hanging like a barricade in some small bay window, there’s a house abandoned, its doors and windows battened down with scraps of hard board or metal grills. In some streets almost every other property is boarded up, splattered with graffiti, and cracked by vandalism.
This is one of the most deprived wards in the country, ranked among the worst five per cent on the index of multiple deprivation. Its notorious reputation hardened when it was highlighted on the TV series Real Estates and Life of Grime. It’s one of the few areas in Greater Manchester where property prices have fallen – from £30,000 ten years ago to £3,000 now, with some estate agents even running "buy one, get one free" offers.
Lee Gosling is the manager of the Salford Positive Futures programme, whose work is focused on the estate. "Originally it served the docks and other traditional industries like mining," he says. "But it’s always been an area of privately rented properties so there’s no tradition of collective provision for repairs or complaints."
As ever young people have been at the butt end of its decline, and the sharp end of its problems. Two years ago, as many as 75 local youngsters didn’t have a school place and some were living "almost feral" existences, inhabiting the abandoned properties without parental supervision, unregistered by social services and unknown to schools. Not surprisingly, youth crime and anti-social behaviour have been a major concern around here for some time.
The Salford Positive Futures project was set up in June 2000 to provide sporting and other opportunities to these young people. It’s run by the Greater Manchester branch of Fairbridge, a national charity that provides support to 13 to 25 year-olds. Already leading the area’s Youth Inclusion Programme, Fairbridge originally took on Positive Futures as a pilot project, partly to see if its unique methods of personal development would work with a younger age group.
So far the signs are good. Lee manages the four-person Positive Futures team, based at its nearby and well-equipped centre, work intensively with groups of about 30 young people a year. Plus another 10 or 15 more who either remain from earlier intakes, or are new to the scheme and just beginning to take part in some of its numerous activities. In total around 150 young people have been part of Positive Futures since it began, although Fairbridge as a whole has had contact with some 80 per cent of "at risk" young people from Seedley and Langworthy, and around 2000 from Greater Manchester since it was set up in 1993.
Young people are referred to the project by any of about 100 local organisations – schools, statutory agencies, and all manner of voluntary and residents’ groups. They are contacted initially by an outreach worker, before being taken to the centre for an induction day. If they like the set-up the young person is given an intensive programme of six days’ introductory sessions over two weeks, for four or five hours a day, before a personal programme of activities is devised.
"After the initial period, each young person has their own programme," says Lee. "We try to engage with them once a week, at least, but how often they come to us will vary according to their individual needs. Everyone on Positive Futures has access to everything else that we do in Greater Manchester anyway, so the opportunities are almost limitless."
Fairbridge works with over 100 organisations and clubs, which help it, provide a vast range of sports – everything from rugby league with Salford Reds, to cycling at Manchester Velodrome. Some of Manchester United’s coaches have helped out at football sessions, while roller hockey, skiing, bowling and golf, among numerous other sports, are provided at facilities in and around the Greater Manchester area.
What’s more, the national charity has it’s own tall-ship and an activity centre in Applecross, on Scotland’s west coast – both of which are available to Positive Futures participants. The walls of the Fairbridge centre, one of 13 around the country, are decorated with colourful photo displays of young people climbing, abseiling, camping, cycling, sailing and doing almost every other kind of sporting activity you can think of.
The centre has a special Positive Futures room where the young people meet to plan and review activities and agency workers lead drugs and health education sessions. A kitchen where they can be fed (often necessary before energetic sessions); an IT suite where they can learn computing skills; and an education room, where staff hold one-to-one meetings, offering the youngsters guidance and support.
While sessional workers and outside coaches often lead the activities, Fairbridge’s development workers are always present to provide continuity and sustain the all-important long-term relationships with the young people. "One of the best things we do is create a family atmosphere," says Lee. "Fairbridge concentrates on the hardest cases, young people who are not comfortable in the school environment and often don’t have much family life of their own. Often we’re the first adults they’ve met who take them seriously, or ask them how they feel about something."
On average young people stay with the project for nine months, and some remain in contact for much longer. All who stick with the project for a minimum of 16 hours get an attendance certificate, and many go on to pursue particular sports more seriously, or return to school. The programme has no end, so the young people stay with it as long as they like and move on only when they are ready.
What’s more, Lee estimates that the rate of school attendance among participants has doubled since the project began, while some of the "wilder" ones made their first contact with an education welfare officer through their Positive Futures activities. Their offending rates are also improving – down by some 50 per cent since they joined the scheme – while crime in the area has dropped by more than 60 per cent since the project started.
Of course, Lee doesn’t pretend that’s the result of some simple process. "The changes that occur in a young person’s life are very difficult to measure," he says. "People tend to look at whether they get a job or go back to education, but there are steps on the way to these things, and that’s where we’re at with these groups. It’s partly about equipping them with the social skills to deal with environments like school. We set goals with them individually so every day we can see whether they’re achieving. Some days are steps forward, some days back."
Sport, he says, acts as a vehicle, a way of interesting young people and getting their commitment, so that the educational work – separate sessions on alcohol or drugs, for example, or the group work that’s often done at the beginning and end of sports sessions – will be engaging. Sport can carry its own lessons too.
"Sport is a very good metaphor," says Lee. "It’s the whole of life writ small, if you like, and helps develop those personal and social skills they need elsewhere. What we’re doing through sport is getting the young person to set their own goals, have a go and achieve something. Then they can start to apply that process to other areas of life. It allows them to see progress, to know that they’re not always going to fail. Sport adds benefit to their lives. It’s a bonus if they also end up joining a sports club for pleasure."
Fairbridge’s ethos of individual support is borne out of a recognition that people progress at different rates. Positive Futures is about helping them to become "change ready", as Lee puts it. "It’s getting them to the stage where they want to change that takes the work," he says. "Especially with the younger ones, you need to give them a rich life-experience before they can really start reflecting on their own lives. Then they can better develop understanding, self-confidence and aspirations. It can be a long road for someone to make the decision to change."
Fairbridge has recently started a satellite programme running the Rochdale Positive Futures project, and Lee hopes that the lessons his team has learned about working with younger children will spread through the charity nationally. "It’s a cliché but it’s true," he says. "We do need to ‘catch them early’."
As for the longer-term renewal of Seedley and Langworthy, Lee knows his project can play a part. "What we’re trying to do is build a total partnership with others in the community who are working for regeneration," he says. "If we’re going to make a difference to crime, then what we do has to make a difference to everything from education to how secure the houses are."
Standing at the top end of Seedley’s streets looking south beyond the rooftops, you can just make out the huge north stand of Old Trafford football stadium, and the words ‘Manchester United Football Club’ shimmering through the mist like a giant red signal from the modern world. In the foreground, nailed to the end wall of a dilapidated terrace is a small black and white sign. "No ball games here," it says.
Thanks to Fairbridge and its partners, many of this community’s young people are playing games nevertheless, and scoring valuable goals of their own.
Factfile
- Area: Seedley and Langworthy, Salford, Greater Manchester
- Lead agency: Fairbridge in Greater Manchester
- Funding: Positive Futures grant of £50,000 for 2003/4.
- Key partners: Careers Partnership, Communities that Care, Community Safety, Education welfare, Family intervention, Lifeline, neighbourhood co-ordinators, police, social services, Sport England, Sports Development department, youth service, Youth Offending Team
- Other agencies: More than 100 involved in delivering sports sessions, including Salford Reds Rugby League Club, Manchester Velodrome, Manchester Roller Hockey Club, Manchester United Football Club, and many more.
- Activities offered: Numerous sports, arts and outward bounds, including abseiling, climbing, cycling, football, golf, mountain biking, roller hockey, rugby league, sailing, skiing, and many more.
- What next: develop corporate and other funding so the project can continue independently; spread the lessons from working with younger children through Fairbridge nationally; further develop the Rochdale Positive Futures programme.
- Top tip: Sit down, take a deep breath, and plan your intervention very carefully.
