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Positive Futures in Sefton

Jason, Sammy and Sue are staring hard at the worn wooden floor of a small hall, somewhere in the maze of an old school building now known as Netherton Activity Centre (NAC) in Sefton, just north of Liverpool. Jason’s cheeks are flushed, his forehead creased, his eyes fixed on the feet of a man who appears to be walking on the spot. "Show us that again," says Jason.

The instructor lines up beside him, and waits for the appropriate beat from his giant boom box over by the wall. "OK," he says, "watch . . . it goes flex, step, bend, kick; flex, step, bend, kick. See?" Jason and Sammy are half a beat behind but making a go of it. "Yeah, you’ve got it, you’re getting there," says the instructor.

Looking up, Jason tugs sheepishly on his untucked T-shirt, his face somehow frowning and smiling at the same time, failing to hide his half-puzzled pleasure. "There," says the instructor. "You can practice that for next time."

"You coming back then?" asks Jason, quick as a flash, revealing a trace of enthusiasm. Just 20 minutes earlier he had been slumped in a chair, while Sammy and Sue, fellow year 10 pupils from Sefton’s local pupil referral unit, wrestled with the rhythm. "I’m not doing this shit, its girls’ stuff," he’d grumbled, in response to Ritchie McGrath’s gentle encouragement.

Ritchie is a development officer from Sefton council’s Leisure Inclusion Services, and one of the Sefton Positive Futures team that has been providing art and sport sessions to youngsters like Jason since May 2002. "This is the fifth week they’ve been coming here," says Ritchie, "and it took until 15 minutes from the end today to get him to do anything. It’s hard, but we’re making small progress."

Jason and his ‘schoolmates’ are some of the 0.1 per cent of Sefton school children who have been permanently excluded from school, and are generally regarded as among the "worst of the worst" of local young people, teenagers with extreme emotional and behavioural difficulties. "They are very, very difficult kids," says Ritchie. "They are very aggressive and tend to see everyone as their enemy. Usually just getting a response out of them can be difficult, and he had them break dancing."

These twice-weekly sessions for year 10s and 11s are part of the school’s alternative curriculum, offering the young people a chance to try photography, dance, drama and music, as well as sports such as basketball. Those who stick with it to the end get a certificate for attendance and an "exercise learning" credit.

"I would have expected some of them to get kicked off this course by now," says Liam Crosbie a teacher from the school. "Some of these kids come with so much baggage, these sessions alone can’t change their attitudes. But we can take them off the street and let them experience something different, give them the chance to do something they wouldn’t normally be able to.

"These kids don’t know where they’re going in their lives, but this gives them some stability," he says. "They don’t get that anywhere else. They are loving it."

They may be the most difficult, but permanently excluded teenagers are only one of many groups of young people the project works with. Targeting children and young people in need of additional support and those considered to be at risk of social exclusion, it works with looked after children, young offenders, children with drug and alcohol problems, and young people with physical and learning difficulties.

Julie Smith is the principal development manager of the Active Communities programme in Sefton and head of a five-person team based at the NAC, now a council-owned community sports, arts and library facility. "Our core aims are to create healthier, safer communities in Sefton by providing access to sport and leisure opportunities for the most vulnerable groups," she says.

The Positive Futures project, managed by Lin Griffin, is an integral part of the Active Communities programme, part of the south Sefton regeneration programme that mainly concentrates on the southern end of the borough, among the most deprived 20 per cent of wards in the country according to the index of multiple deprivation. Yet by combining the Positive Futures grant with money from the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund, Health Inequalities, the Drug Action Team and Quality Protects (to a total in excess of £340,000), the project is able to work borough-wide.

By adopted a broad definition of leisure, the project can provide young people with the widest range of activities, as Simon Burnett, principal development manager for Sefton’s Leisure Inclusion Service, and the man responsible for establishing the project, explains. "We provide leisure in its broadest sense, not just sport," he says. "Sport is a catalyst for change for some people, but only some. We use a variety of leisure and cultural activities to engage the interests of young people under the banner of Positive Futures as it encapsulates everything we are trying to achieve."

The central task of providing leisure opportunities to "at risk" 10 to 18 year-olds is part of what Julie calls "the community development ethos" endorsed, not only by her team, but by all its wide variety of active partners as well. "We are not here to create new things, we are here to enhance what’s already there," she says. "So we work closely with all the agencies that already work with our target groups, adding leisure and cultural opportunities to their programmes. We say, ‘it’s not about doing things more, it’s about doing things differently’."

Development worker Dylan Jones co-ordinates one of the project’s core programmes, called "eXperiential Learning", or XL, run in partnership with the youth offending team (YOT) and youth services. The young people who are referred to it by social services, schools, education welfare officers, YOT, and others, tend to be on the brink of exclusion or offending, or have drug and alcohol problems.

A maximum of 12 at a time meet at the NAC on two evenings a week for three months to try a broad range of sports and arts activities – everything, says Dylan, from ice skating to horse riding, and from fishing to football, including such oddities as land yachting and kite buggies. Sometimes the sessions take place within the centre, sometimes they involve a mini-bus trip to local clubs and facilities, but always with at least four members of staff, including sessional workers and qualified coaches. There are also opportunities to do outdoor sports, plus occasional camping trips and residential weekends.

"The activities we do are a combination of what’s available, what the kids want to do, and what has worked well in the past," says Julie. "As it develops, we hope to have blocks of sessions on particular sports and activities so we can start to focus on developing their skills."

At the end of the three months there’s a two-week break in which the young people and staff decide whether they are ready to leave. If not, they can carry on for another three months alongside new referrals. " For us It’s very important that young people come and leave when they are ready to leave, rather than just because they have completed the programme," says Simon. "It’s about affecting change, rather than just giving them a taste of something then moving them on."

Julie hopes the project will set up a participation award scheme in the near future, and add "learning outcomes" to the social and educational aspects of the sessions, so that some of the young people can move towards NVQs and other qualifications. She is also extending the XL model to other target groups.

For example, Lin Griffin has been helping a neighbourhood action group, based at the local Peel Road community centre, to get funding from The Children’s Fund and Awards for All so it can reproduce the XL model with an emphasis on neighbourhood-focused work. Another version of XL, run in conjunction with the YOT, is aimed specifically at young people who are on court orders or "tagged" (under the ISSP Intensive Supervision Surveillance Programme).

Also, in addition to their work with permanently excluded children, Positive Futures staff support a programme for temporarily excluded pupils through a scheme called Sprint (Sefton Positive Response to Inclusion and Teaching). And another development worker, Kat Coulton, partnered by sports and arts development officers in leisure services, has been helping young people in the looked after system to access leisure in the community. By building links with the voluntary sector and leisure organisations, young participants will be given a catalogue of opportunities, such as free taster sessions at local sport clubs, and will be part of an "appropriate mentoring process" with club officials.

Other specific groups will be catered for when a "play and leisure inclusion officer for children with disabilities" and an "arts inclusion officer" are added to the Positive Futures team in the near future, posts created with support from Sefton Children’s Fund. The project also has an outreach programme of evening football sessions. Organised, in partnership with the YOT, "more like drop-ins" for young people at risk of offending, these sessions are run on a very informal voluntary participation basis.

In addition, part of the Active Communities work involves helping local communities acquire new sports facilities and other resources for young people in their areas, so there’ll be an alternative to the street and a distraction from vandalism, graffiti and neighbourhood disruption.

Simon insists, however, that such a broad range of initiatives hasn’t diverted the project’s focus from the most "at risk" young people. "We have developed a model that enables us to support young people who are already in the looked after system, known to the attendance and behaviour support team, or involved with the YOT. In that way everyone we work with is considered to be at risk. In effect we are a specialist support service that provide the sport and leisure elements of these young people’s programmes."

Clearly, they must be doing something right. Jeff Jones, manager of the NAC, says he has seen a significant drop in vandalism since the team started working there, and especially since he was directly involved in community development programmes such as Splash extra this summer. "Not one egg was thrown at the centre during mischief night," he says. "My staff have spent days cleaning the building in previous years and other local buildings still got targeted this year."

For Simon and Julie, sport is both a way of attracting, or distracting, disengaged youngsters, and a valuable educational tool in itself. "We use leisure as a way of engaging young people," says Julie. "Then they can start valuing themselves because they are having positive experiences. Of course, one intervention isn’t going to change their lives, but if we can develop relationships and give them some start it might make a difference."

It may even work for Jason, Sammy and Sue. The trio are slumped on chairs and desks, recovering from their break dancing session with a shared cigarette "That was all right that," says Jason. "It’s not as good as the photography though, that’s the best ’cos you get to use loads of good stuff."

He takes a long drag. "That’ll slow you down that," says the instructor as he heads for the exit. Jason swings his legs, and passes the cigarette to Sammy. "See you next week then," he calls.

Factfile

• Area: Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council, Merseyside
• Lead agency: Leisure Inclusion Service, Sefton Council
• Funding: Positive Futures grant of £50,000 for 2003/4.
• Key partners: Drugs Action Team, Mersey Police, Social Services Children and Families, Sefton Education Department, Sefton Health Authority (health improvement team), Sefton Safer Communities Partnership, South Sefton Primary Care Trust, Youth Inclusion Programme, Youth Offending Team.
• Other agencies involved: Forward Steps, Netherton Activity Centre, Peel Road Neighbourhood Action team, Sefton Arts Development Services
  Activities offered: basketball, baseball, camping, dance, drama, fishing, football, gorge walking, hill walking, ice skating, kite buggies, lacrosse, land yachting, mountain biking, music, open canoeing, photography, rock climbing, rugby union, scrambling, skiing
• What next: reproduce XL model from local community centres; develop NVQ curriculum; develop themed sports sessions; employ children’s disability worker; employ arts inclusion worker
• Top tip: Don’t reinvent the wheel, work with agencies that are already there so young people are treated holistically; keep smiling.

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