Celebrating the Positive achievements of Thornaby Young People
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.
To celebrate the success of the Young People who have overcome barriers and made exceptional achievements over the POSBO project, a celebration event and award ceremony was organised for Thursday 7 April 2016.
The event was organised in three sessions a morning session, afternoon session and an evening celebration for the Young People.
The morning session included; guest speakers and awards. The guest speakers included; Police crime commissioner Barry Coppinger, Jess Hugill Member of Youth Parliament for Stockton and Graeme Oram Five Lamps Chief Executive.
20 Young People from the Thornaby Area were nominated for their achievements and were presented with awards by Middlesbrough FC Legend Bernie Slaven.
The afternoon session included many activities for the Young People and their families to be involved in but to also raise awareness such as; Beer goggle challenge, where young people were given the opportunity to test their skills on the climbing wall and also drive a stimulator car which gave them the effect of being under the influence of alcohol.
They were also shown road safety films by Cleveland Fire Brigade and were then involved in a Crash Scene Exercise where the Fire Brigade showed the young people how their team work together in a short space of time to release casualty’s from road traffic accidents using hydraulic cutters to dismantle the car to get their casualty’s out without causing anymore injuries.
There was also various workshops for the young people to be involved in such as; Budgeting for a better tomorrow which was delivered by Jenny Donaldson Business and Enterprise Officer at Stockton Council, Recycling old bicycles by Kevin McCabe from Youth Direction and Cleveland Police on Cycle Safety.
To conclude the day 40 Young People all came together on the evening where an MC night was organised with performances by MC Banksy and MC Maestro. It was a great night with some of the young people getting involved in the Karaoke and also a duet of fantastic MC music by one of the young people; Reece Rogers and MC Banksy.
Sue Westerman, Five Lamps Director of Corporate Services said;
“This was a brilliant day celebrating young people’s achievements and all of them should feel really proud of themselves. Working in partnership with Youth Direction, Police and the Anti-Social Behaviour Team has proved a real success and the young people have been able to get involved in lots of projects to move them away from anti-social behaviour into doing something really positive.”
If you would like any information about our POSBO Project you can contact Darren Iveson Senior Youth Participation Worker at Five Lamps on; 01642 673793/ 07894567938.