Halloween is a busy time of the year for our Five Lamps Youth Workers and Partners, especially in Thornaby Community where the Police and Anti-Social Behaviour officers are trying to reduce crime within Thornaby
Five Lamps Youth Workers have been working in partnership with Youth Direction and other agencies, to develop a coordinated approach to engage young people involved in anti-social behaviour and low level criminal behaviour into more meaningful positive activities.
The POSBO Project was introduced in March 2014 and explores ways of reducing young people’s involvement in Anti-Social Behaviour. To which the project aims to recognise their positive achievements and offers them time and support to overcome their problems and issues. After numerous meetings a short list of 35 young people’s names were identified as a referral to the POSBO Project at The Youthy, as they were known as being a part of a larger group. Most of the young people in this group were either receiving Anti-Social Behaviour letters or were gathering in public places and were perceived to be causing a nuisance.
Over the cause of the year the Youth Workers have developed a tool in which the young people who have been involved in some kind of community breach or were in the age category 11-19 year olds could attend the POSBO session once a week on a Thursday evening 7:00pm till 9:00pm. The hard work from the staff involved and the commitment from the young people have now made great strides to move away from the negative behaviour.
Each week the Youth Workers engage with the young people who attend and discuss their interests and find out which positive activities could sway them away from Anti-Social behaviour.
The feedback has identified they have a great interest in; music, in particular, urban rap and MC which had inspired the idea of having the young people involved in a music workshop. In 2014, Darren Iveson, Senior Youth Participation Worker invited; Richie Kenyon who is the owner of PUI (Positive Urban Inspiration) to The Youthy to discuss this idea.
Darren, Richie and the supporting partners came up with the idea to create a night dedicated to urban rap and mc, with acts such as George Emery known as Young Gee who the young people see as an inspiration.
The music event occurred on Friday 30 October 2014 which is also known as Mischief Night (Mischief Night is known as a night where young people engage in pranks and minor vandalism) The aim of the night was to make the community a safer place for at least one night.
There were 70 young people who attended the night, which was a fantastic turn out and the response of the young people was tremendous. Furthermore the feedback from the local Chief Inspector Darren Becket was positive as the high attendance to the event had indicated a reduced in Anti-Social Behaviour and low level criminal behaviour by 25% as statistics show from the previous year.
Due to all of the hard work from youth workers and partners this event proved to be a successful night in 2014, so this year The Youthy aimed to build on their success and create a bigger night aiming to bring all of the young people from Thornaby together which was to be held on the evening of Mischief Night 2015.
After numerous meetings with partners, the team decided to give the young people of Thornaby a similar night but better. Darren Iveson, Senior Youth Participation Worker contacted Richie Kenyon from PUI to see if he could support this night for a second year and Darren and staff spoke to a number of young people with regards to the event.
The feedback concluded they would like to see local MC Banks perform at their music evening and after staff contacting Mc Banks, he agreed to perform on the night, alongside six other local artists who Richie had contacted.
This year the event was advertised across the whole of Thornaby to offer all young people a free Music Spooktacular evening at The Youthy, using various methods of advertising such as; Facebook, posters, leaflets and word of mouth.
On the evening of the night, the queue outside of The Youthy was growing continuously and the young people were eager to see the headlining acts and supporting acts such as; Young Gee, MC Banks and Trix MC.
Darren Iveson, Senior Youth Participation Worker said:
“The Spooktacular night, had a great response with 90 young people attending from across Thornaby, for the first time the young people came together and formed a youth community. The overall aim of the night was to reduce the Anti-Social Behaviour and to make Thornaby a safer place and to help support our local Police officers, and to protect our community. The POSBO Project still carries on as we stride forward to sway the young people away from Anti-Social Behaviour”