Detached Youth Work
The
original motivation for Detached youth work, when the project started twenty
years ago was to research the needs of young people in the city centre and
assess the relationship young people had with the Police and other authorities.
Much of this work was centred around young people using Eldon Square shopping
Centre and the project intervened to advocate on behalf of young people who
were being moved on and seen as a nuisance by security guards and commercial
businesses. Although our detached work has changed considerable over the years
and does focus more on young people who are homeless, it is interesting to
note that we are still working with young people around the issue of them
being perceived as a problem and moved on regularly. This year the project
carried out research with the Youth Parliament and a video project which examined
the tensions between young people using Eldon Green and the authorities.
As groups are constantly changing working in the city centre can be quite arduous as building relationships with young people proves difficult when there are long gaps when they are not seen. Over the years however the project has managed to establish itself and now we usually find when we meet a group for the first time that at least one of them has heard of the project or knows someone who uses the project. One of our strengths has been the number of young people who are brought to the project by other young people.
Detached youth work remains essential to our work and enables the project to contact vulnerable young people and to keep in touch with life in the city centre. We have operated sessions at different times over the years including very late / early morning sessions. Three years ago the project began to incorporate a session at Hillcourt (Newcastle's emergency Accommodation). This has proved to be a very successful session and many young people contacted on their door steps have gone on to participate in the Drop-in and group work programmes. We have plans to expand and increase our detached provision in the coming year.
© Brunswick Young Peoples Project 2002-7