One of the key principles of youthwork that I love is that of empowerment. This is often best illustrated by thinking about space (as in somewhere to be, not the solar system!). In most contexts young people occupy space which they neither control or have ownership of, be it school, Read more…
One of the first young people I mentored was a 12 year old boy called Matt. He had a complicated background and family, and I would often get confused by all the names and how they were related. One day I asked Matt to draw me a family tree – Read more…
What started as an idea from one parent to make her family’s daily walk a little more interesting, has become an image of hope and gratefulness. The original Facebook group has the description “Our children soon won’t be able to see their friends. Create a rainbow picture to display in Read more…
A friend of mine, a single parent, posts her “reasons to be grateful” on Facebook every evening. When she started doing this, like with most posts, I gave it a cursory glance if and when I saw it. Now I find myself looking out for her posts each day. Partly Read more…
Trying to remember what day of the week it is, let alone what date or month it is, is quite a challenge at the moment. I’ve just taken five minutes to run back through my diary trying to work out what I’ve been up to, and I think I can Read more…
This week, our friend Emily Twigg, guest authors a blog about her experiences of doing youth ministry virtually: “4 weeks ago I, like many others, had never head of zoom, kahoot, houseparty or drawful amongst many other games and video calling apps which have now become part of our daily Read more…
This week I’m going to look particularly at how parents can support young people during the current social isolation period. We might be used to our kids spending most of their time in their rooms, accessing their phones, staring into space, but without school to go to, we can feel guilty Read more…
Like all of us, young people have been dramatically affected by social isolation. School closures happened pretty much overnight, GCSE and A-Level exams were cancelled, and social activities were suddenly banned. In modern society, it may seem like these changes are exactly what young people have been looking for: No Read more…