How many does it support?

• 303 young people (10-16) have been supported by
through school based group work since 2017
In 2018/19 this community based group work has
worked with
• Number of young people • Identified (referred) – 178
• Number of young people recruited (appropriate
referrals) –140
• Number of young people taking up the service – 112

Case study - Year 6 male accessing the Smile project

Background
Check list was submitted by the health visitor who was seeking support for the young person.
The young person lives at home with his mother and 4 siblings and was home educated by his mother after experiencing bullying at school. The young person had become withdrawn and fearful of going back to school. The young person was due to move into year 7 in September.
The referral highlighted a number of issues that were having an impact including a family breakdown, body image, bullying over his weight, his low mood and prospect of moving on to secondary school after being home educated.
The young person and his mother were visited in the family home where the Smile group work project was discussed. By attending Smile it was hoped that the young person could start to explore strategies in coping with difficult situations and build his self-esteem to go back into mainstream education.

Support Provided
The young person was invited to take part in the Smile group work for 12 weeks, focusing on confidence building and developing strategies in dealing with difficult situations.
To gain a better understanding of the support needed the young person completed a My Star which highlighted areas in their life where they felt they needed support and improvement.

Impact
Initially the young person was quiet and tended to observe group discussions rather than join in. During the project the young person become more willing and took part in group activities and discussions. Although some of the topics where challenging to talk about the young person did share personal experiences and talked about their feelings.
During the group discussions the young person highlighted how bullying had affected him, made him feel isolated at school and left him feeling that he had no friends. The young person began to build positive relationships with the other young people and youth workers and continued to engage and share how he felt about being a victim. As the plan was for the young person to re-enter mainstream education a lot of work was carried out on building his resilience.The young person reviewed his My Star and felt more confident being part of a group and felt able to join in group activities and discussions The young person’s mother said he was a lot happier and looked forward to coming to Smile and had formed new friendships.

Next Steps
After completing Smile he joined the Young Men’s Group at a local Youth Centre and is an active member.

Feedback from young person:
I feel that I can talk more to my mum. I recognise how my behaviour can sometime upset her & that I need to work more on our relationship’.

Feedback from parent of young person accessing Smile
“My son enjoyed the Smile programme and since finishing the group has gained the confidence to join a scout group”