Context – and fit to Charity’ s Mission ‘ to support disabled people of all ages with particular emphasis on younger and older people …. to advance education by enabling the full participation in community life coming together on equal terms to include lay and professional people, services users and service providers, friends, families, carers, advocates, groups and representatives..’ Young people are especially important to us as they are the future leaders, service providers and central to the charity’s sustainability and resilience.
As a Disabled Peoples User Led Charity, our infrastructure strength relies upon the skills, energies, commitment and given time of our stake holding base of service users, participants, partners, staff, Trustees and partner groups and agencies. Over 36 years we have worked to build our own capacity by training our own participants across a range of areas essential to lour sustainability and these include: BSL and BRAILLE, Sports Leadership, Play work and Youth Work, Retail and Catering, Reception skills and more – people come to NTDF by choice and not by direction and as beneficiaries of our services, many take advantage of training and skills build opportunities and our ethos of ‘more leading means less needing’ is one that has built lives, vocations and our charity into its 4rd decade. From our centre base t our community shop – we could not provide the range of activities, support or deliver our services without the passion and dedication of those folk of all ages who support us.
The situation: Post COVID lockdown, our disabled young peoples groups were fragmented and challenged by increased anxieties and new reluctancies around engagement with others and participation in group activities and events.
At the start of 2022, we reported ‘ At December 2021, 39% of under 25s, (23 young people - past participants to our Positive Futures work were still anxious and reluctant to step beyond their own doors.’ We detailed successful outcomes as: By the end of 48 weeks, 23 reluctant and anxious young people will rebuild competence and appetite to return and reengage purposefully in NTDF’s Positive Future Lives ‘live the best life you can’ project. Over 48 weeks 15 young volunteers will build skills around mentoring and peer support befriending that can be used into the future as transferable skills
The Need/Purpose of grant: To harness the energies of our more robust participants and use this energy as a peer support mechanism to encourage re engagement and tackle the barriers and obstacles to involvements arising form the impact of the covid pandemic period.
At March 2022, attendances to our Easter Programme of activities – for 4s to 25s – where the older members facilitate sessions to support activities of the younger ones, - using sports leadership skills and play and youth work skills, we had 12 peer supporters involved in working with just 10 younger participants between the ages of 6 and 25. By Summer 2022, we had 15 peer support buddies working to support 20 children and young people aged between 4 and 23. This Easter 2023, we ran two groups: under 10s had attendances of 15 and 8 to 25 group had 14 participants. We had 15 Peer Support Participants.
These holiday period sessions are the result of ongoing week on week outreach support, by peer mentors, one to one or small groups working to encourage reluctant children and young people back to our 3 x evening and Saturday play and youth Groups. Value for money? 2500/ 44 = £57 per capacity over 48 weeks being a weekly costs of less than £1.20 per participants. Whilst the work was supported by in house/other project support to space, rental, services, subsistence, materials, equipment and other staffing – there is no doubt that the bespoke support to this way of encouraging re engagement – facilitated directly by the Pixel Fund grant – has made a very certain difference. Without the Pixel Fund support, we didn’t have the capacity to do this. Thank you.