A Day In The Life Of… Shelter Gloucestershire’s Peer Education Service
Shelter operates a peer education project across Gloucestershire as part of the national Keys to the Future initiative. The peer education project is a pilot and is funded for three years taking it to 2010. The project was developed with the following aims:
- To reduce the number of young people becoming homeless by conveying the realities of young people’s housing in Gloucestershire – the massive difficulties accessing it and sustaining it
- To increase the number of planned moves of young people leaving home
- To increase take up of early intervention services and support where necessary
The key principle of the project is to provide a high quality prevention service that is deigned for and delivered by young people across Gloucestershire. The peer educators are between 16 and 25 and will have experienced homelessness and/or a housing need at some point. They will have received training to deliver fun and interactive sessions exploring homelessness in schools, colleges and youth groups. The main element of the session is the peer educator’s personal story in which the peer educators reflect back on their experiences and pass on key messages to the group.
The project is made up of two peer education and support workers, a multimedia and participation officer, a part-time admin worker and a team leader. The project has recently developed a strand to start working with young people who have experienced running away and this means we can start working with groups from the age of 11 through to 25. It’s really important that we share messages to young people about running away and leaving home throughout their time at school and beyond as we know only too well that homelessness can happen to anyone, at any point.
Anna Gregory is the team leader for the project and has spent this week out and about in the county working with young people. Monday morning was spent ensuring all plans were in place as we had 9 sessions booked in schools for the week. This means that we were working with 7 peer educators, meeting 9 different teachers, working with over 180 students and travelling to three different districts across the county – a lot to organise! It’s really exciting when we have lots of delivery happening over a period as the peer educators get the chance to try different approaches to their delivery and learn from each other. We all really get into our stride and enjoy meeting lots of people each day and sharing a really powerful message.
After each session we collate the paperwork and evaluations from the young people and have a quick de-brief with the peer educators to see how they felt the session went. I then drop the peer educators off and head back the office to prepare for some training that’s happening tomorrow!
Tuesday sees me meeting Shania who wants to become a peer educator. Shania had already been interviewed, risk assessed and reference requests sent off as part of her induction to the project. One of our aims is to familiarise the young people who volunteer for the project to a professional environment so that they might be more prepared for the world of work. I drove to Stroud to meet with Shania and we spent a bit of time getting know each other over a cuppa before we got down to the training. The training itself can be quite intense as you are finding out about aspects of a persons’ life that may have been quite negative. We work hard to make sure the volunteers feel comfortable and safe with their information and tailor it so as to share a preventative message. Shania said she really enjoyed her training – even if she was a bit apprehensive to start with – and is looking forward to learning how to deliver some of the activities we deliver as part of the sessions.
After more delivery in schools on Wednesday morning I get to buckle down and do some paperwork in the afternoon. At the moment I am considering the offer our project is making to volunteers and looking at ways to enhance their experience whilst with Shelter. Our volunteers really value the added extras we are able to offer them such as: V Inspire Awards; a BTEC in Peer Education; work experience and various opportunities to take part in consultation and recruitment for other organisations amongst other things. I would really like to capture the development of our volunteers in a portfolio so they have action plans and a record of all the achievements they have made whilst with Shelter.
One of the other peer education and support workers is delivering at a youth club this evening so I keep my phone on as I am her health and safety check-in person for the evening. We agree to check in with each other at agreed times to ensure staff safety whilst out and about. This is a great back-up for the team even if it does mean having to answer the phone in the middle of the Fulham vs Juventus game!
On Thursday I work form Bristol as I live there and it means I can walk to work. I spend the day making plans for our regular meeting with all the peer educators together. For this event, we get some nice food in and organise training in and around socialising and the peer educators nominating themselves for upcoming deliveries. This month we are going to receive some training on the recent Choice Base Lettings system that has rolled out across Gloucestershire. We have also been working closely with the policy team within Shelter to consult on a young-person friendly leaflet giving information on the Southwark Ruling. It’s really important our peer educators are kept up to date with changes that could affect them and other young people going through the housing system.
On Friday I have another delivery in the morning which means that I am up very early to make sure I pick the peer educator in good time for us to travel to the school in time for a 9am lesson. Then it’s back to the office to catch up the rest of the team and start planning again for Monday morning!
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