HSYAReview2024 - Flipbook - Page 6
The High Sheriff Youth Awards in 2023-2024
Intergenerational Music Making
SparkFish
Surrey Care Trust
Intergenerational Music Making (IMM)
pioneers co-produced music projects,
training, workshops, and events in the
UK. Over a decade in Surrey, IMM
engaged 200+ schools, PRUs, care
homes, and community groups.
Activities include song writing, therapy,
choirs, and orchestras. A 12-week rap
project targeted 9-18-year-olds in
Woking, fostering positive relationships
and addressing specific needs. Led by
experienced producers and therapists,
it facilitated creative expression and
intergenerational mentoring,
showcasing positive outcomes. Goals
involved engagement in positive
activities, reducing anti-social
behaviour, and fostering self-discipline
and citizenship. Despite COVID-19
challenges, the project mitigated
isolation's impact, improving emotional
well-being. Aligned with HSYA funding,
it effectively targeted at-risk youth,
reducing potential anti-social behaviour
in Woking.
SparkFish is a local charity based in
Redhill that exists to inspire young
people in faith, hope and love.
SparkFish has three strands of work:
STEPS is an Alternative Learning
provision for 14–16-year-olds who have
fallen out of mainstream education.
Often, vulnerable young people with
severe struggles in their lives face
exclusion from school. This will simply
compound their disadvantage. Instead,
these struggling teenagers come to our
STEPS Learning Centre in Goldsworth
Park, Woking, where we provide them
with a personalised, caring education
that helps them get their lives back on
track. The young people we support
face a number of different disadvantages
but have all ended up in a similar place:
without STEPS’ support, they will not
get an appropriate education by the
time they enter adulthood.
1 Hope – supporting young people
during times of challenge through
mentoring, ‘drawing and talking’, small
groups, and transitions support for
year 6’s.
2 Think! – we create spaces where
young people can reflect mindfully on
their lives and the world around them.
3 Learn – we support RE provision in
schools by providing seasonal events,
lessons and assemblies.
We greatly value the opportunity
through the HSYA grant to offer
mentoring sessions to young people
free of charge in schools.
Young people who have engaged with
our mentoring programme say:
“You can tell them anything and they
always find a way to help.”
“I like how I can be here unjudged. I
have learnt how to view stuff more
positively.”
We firmly believe our mentoring with
young people improves self-esteem,
increases resilience levels and creates
healthier young people at secondary
school age and beyond.
6
STEPS was a last resort for Olly, whose
social worker had been trying to help
him turn his life. He hadn’t really
attended school for almost a year,
instead spending his time socialising
with a group of bad influences who
were often in trouble with the police for
fighting, shoplifting, and stealing bikes
and mopeds. In Olly’s own words:
“I was in with the wrong people, and I
was heading to prison at that point.”
“If I look back to a year ago, it doesn’t
really seem like that’s me. I’m a different
person now.” Olly says the personal
attention and support from STEPS ’staff
is what changed him.
