A new personal and social development programme for young people has been launched in Ceredigion by the Ceredigion Youth Service. The Inspire programme is a 12 week programme for young people aged 16-25.
The programme gives young people opportunities to access planned weekly youth work provision and professional support, to help them reach their future goals. Activities include team building workshops, vocational taster courses at Ceredigion Training and Dysgu Bro, Creativity workshop with Ceredigion Museum, a Sea Voyage experience and much more.
The young people will work towards achieving an Agored Cymru Level 1 Award in Personal and Social Education. They will have the opportunity to progress towards the Level 1 Certificate, which is an equivalent GCSE D-G grade.
Under the programme, four young people recently participated in a Sea Voyage experience with Challenge Wales, a Cardiff-based charity. The charity gives young people and adults funded opportunities to experience new ways of learning and to develop their interpersonal skills. The four young people involved helped navigate the 60ft schooner from Pwllheli to Neyland over a 2 day period. They developed their personal and social skills by working as part of a team and experience the work needed to sail at sea.
The Inspire programme also gives young people involved an opportunity to plan their own community project. The Youth Service were successful in attaining a Youth Led Grant of £500 from CAVO, which will now be used to support the young people with project planning and delivery. The young people will work together for a 6-week period to identify a community need and use the funding to plan an event to benefit that community.
Ceredigion Youth Service’s Principal Youth Officer, Gethin Jones said, “The Inspire programme is an example of positive Youth Work provision, as it is led by the young people and the focus is on their personal development. The programme’s aim is to build their experiences and skills through introducing them to various activities and taster courses; and then supporting them to develop their own community project, helping them to develop important life skills and also to integrate with a community in which they feel is important.”
At the end of the programme, the young people will have one-to-one sessions with a Communities for Work+ Mentor and Youth Worker, to focus on the next step and what is required for them to reach their goal. This could be employment, further training and/or education or other opportunities. The programme works in close partnership with other youth support services, such as CCC’s ESF project Cam Nesa, in providing more intensive support with aspects such as health and wellbeing.
Councillor Catrin Miles, Cabinet Member with responsibility for Lifelong Learning said, “This is a fantastic opportunity for young people in Ceredigion to get involved in new, exciting activities and courses that will help develop skills and qualities that are required for their future aspirations. It’s so pleasing to see the Youth Service continuing to develop programmes such as this to benefit the lives of young people”.
For more information about this programme, or to find out what other opportunities are available to you, head over to CYS Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages at @GICeredigionYS, website www.giceredigionys.co.uk or contact the Team on youth@ceredigion.gov.uk.
20/08/2018