Over 20 Years of Youth Work Services

The youth panel was created to give young people a voice and enable them to have a real impact on decision making at a local and city wide level. The group attended meetings with funders and have shaped the majority of the work we have done. As well as the youth affairs side the group played a large role in the creation of our interactive workshops and youth festivals.

In 2008 Streetvibe were asked to take over management at The Braunstone Grove Youth Club. The club offered music production workshops, free bicycle repairs, cooking classes, access to computers as well as a chance to chill out and play games consoles, pool tables and table tennis.

Streetvibe secured funding through the Emerald Centre to provide a weekly girls only group for young travellers. The group were able to access the internet at a time when it wasn't readily available. They also took part in many activities such as creating their own magazine and making CD's. 

The work gave the girls an opportunity to be with their peers away from the site and parents were happy for them to come as it was an all girls group.

In 2011 we were starting to see the effects of the London riots reach out into Leicester. Although not as severe we still had significant groups of young people on the streets and damage to local businesses and communities. In response to this Streetvibe and a handful of other local organisations were asked by the police to help steer young people away from rioting. 

At the time we had significant reach due to our daily youth work sessions across the city on our mobile youth bus and van. This meant we knew many of the young people in the areas we worked in and more importantly that they knew and trusted our staff. 

The work included detached youth work sessions and allowed us to talk directly to young people and relay their concerns, needs and wants back to those in charge. Because of our close relationship with many of the young people we met we were also able to help identify why they  were taking part in these activities and talk to them about the risks involved.

One of our most visual and high impact pieces of work has been our Youth Festival. The project was started in collaboration with ER Dance after seeing a similar piece of work done in Sunderland known as the xl youth villages. The project involved a weekly festival style event in a different area of Leicester over a period of 8 weeks. The final event brought all of these areas together in the city centre and had live performers, inflatables, laser quest and other organisations that could come and signpost young people to their services such as the choices sexual health services.

In 2012  we had a real problem with a new drug called M-Cat. The drug was legal at the time and large groups of our young people had started experimenting with it which was starting to seriously effect their health.

When we tried to get help on the subject we were told that nothing was available due to the newness of the drug. This shocked us and led to us working with a group of young people directly affected by the drug. To do this we decided to take them on a weekend workshop at Beaumanor Hall. The result of this was the creation of a new drug and alcohol workshop that young people helped to create. 

Young people decided that the workshop had to be informal, non judgemental and interactive. So we created a murder mystery scenario where groups of young people had to investigate a missing young person. Using videos and clues the workshop led people on a journey and in order to find the right answer meant that young people had to learn about different drugs and their effects on health. This form of informal education worked extremely well and meant we were able to teach more people about the dangers of M-Cat which was still classed as a legal high at the time.

The workshop was also delivered to all new Police Community Support Officers.

The Bike Project started with the help of a volunteer who was passionate about teaching young people to repair their own bikes. At first the project ran 1 day a week at our youth club The Braunstone Grove. Due to its huge popularity the project went from strength to strength and at its peak:

• Was teaching young people in schools
• Had 2 sessions a week in the youth club repairing bikes
• Worked with the police to give bikes to young people for free to get them to school, college and work
• Fixed hundreds of young people's bikes city wide for free at the Youth Festival events

A great example of intergenerational work which involved young volunteers helping retired members of the community learn computer literacy. The weekly meet-up gave older members of the community a chance to learn how to use computers to better their lives. Young people were able to help on a wide range of issues and enabled members to be able to use the internet to communicate with relatives, learn about gardening, access social media and so much more.

Due to the time of Ramadan young people were out much later in the evenings in the Highfields and Spinny Hill areas. In response to this need  Streetvibe provided late night youth work activities. Sessions included games and a chance for young people to talk and share their experiences of fasting.  The work enabled us to work with multiple groups in each area and offer support to many young people who had newly arrived in the UK.

In 2014 we started a combination of Bus sessions and 1 to 1 mentoring with young people in Hinckley. The work gave us a chance to really get to know the needs of young people and to offer direct support to those who needed it most.

During the Covid-19 pandemic we were unable to provide youth bus sessions so were fund decided to provide detached youth work instead. The work gave us a chance to support young people during lockdown and offer them support with things like finding work, understanding the changing laws and just having someone to talk to.

Our work with Children in Need ensured that in times of severe youth service cuts we were still able to work with young people for 3 years. The work came at a time when many youth clubs were starting to close and without it would have meant that young people in Braunstone would have been without vital youth services.