Six weeks have passed and we have just waved goodbye to our young participants on the Out There programme, with a mix of relief and sadness.

Aged between 13 and 15 years of age they come to us with a range of emotional and behavioural issues and most struggle with school. Our outcomes we work towards are to help them with emotional regulation, managing their behaviour, learning team work, and building aspiration.
After what seemed at times a long haul, we sat quietly on our last day, whittling wood and making memory sticks and having a really meaningful conversation. On day one this seemed an impossible dream as we agreed boundaries, filled in evaluation forms, took stock of each other and worked out how on earth we were to keep this group safe and working together. They were tough and being nervous brought out posturing, positioning, territory forming and a lot of storming.  Norming and performing seemed a long way away in the old team building speak!
Again nature and our facilitation process worked together and we got to the last day in one piece.
That one piece was a group of young people who felt that the world had given up on them. They feel that they are labelled and picked on and they don’t know how else to do things than being disruptive, hard to handle, disrespectful and often violent. They struggle to take responsibility – they struggle to focus – they struggle to enjoy life and feel good. It is an unfamiliar place for many.
With patience, never shouting, keeping a firm handle on behaviour and boundaries, and working creatively and at their pace – we make a difference to them and their feedback was tear forming…’I learned to let people in’, ’I learned to share’, ‘I have confidence now’, ‘ I enjoyed meeting new people as I struggle to make friends’, ‘I love being outside’, ‘I learned to make fires’ …is just a small bit of what they fed back.
The next programme runs in September/October 2016 and in August we are running a similar programme but for Young Carers. We are almost at capacity but happy to take applications if you have any young people in mind.
The Out There Academy is funded by Essex County Council YSG (Youth Strategy Group).