Youth Truth - a peer education project with young parent in Lambeth

Youth TruthA peer education project with young parents in Lambeth

2013-2014

Youth Truth - a peer education pilot

an intensive intervention to help young and teenage parents to

• find a career

• move towards financial stability

Why trial peer ed with young parents?

• parenthood often means a surge in ambition and drive in young people who have not previously engaged with education, training or employment

• chance to get to hard to reach young people, around difficult topics of particular relevance in Lambeth

• prevent children becoming young parents, involvement in gangs, violent & exploitative relationships

Project Aims & Objectives

• Reduce risk of long term social exclusion for teenage and young parents aged 18 – 24 and their children

• Educate children and young people aged 11 – 16 to make informed choices around various risky behaviours, including:

o teenage pregnancy and parenthood

o violence and control in relationships

o gang grooming processes

• Test how a peer education model might support young and teenage parents to find a career and move towards financial stability for themselves and their families

Recruitment & Retention

• 62 young parents recruited

• 26 began peer education training

• 21 completed accredited peer ed training

Free crèche facilities and child care were critical.

Peer Ed training programme

• 5 x peer facilitation (London Youth)

• 1 x session planning and delivery practice (St Michael’s)

• 1 x preparation for work (St Michael’s)

• 1 x interview skills (Dress for Success)

• 1 x sexual health training (Brook London)

• 1 x Child Exploitation & Online Protection CEOPs (Met Police)

• 1 x domestic violence (St Michael’s)

• 1 x gang grooming (St Michael’s)

Developing work readiness

• 21 peer educators gained 3 AQA certificates

• 9 gained a further 2 AQA certificates

Developing work readiness

• Pre peer ed training, 22 were NEET

• Post peer ed training, 5 were NEET

Those remaining NEET

“I was enjoying being a peer educator but then found I was expecting a second baby. However, I went ahead to set up an online young parent’s blog.

As a result, I was invited to be the feature parent and spokesperson for a young mums support network and Baby Bump, a pregnancy app for mobile phones, which I’m now promoting on YouTube!” Natalie

Delivering peer education

• peer educators delivered 16 sessions

• 130 young people aged 14 – 18 attended

• the most popular topic was gang grooming

“ gave me a real insite (sic) on what gang life could be like… how it starts and how to spot it.”

“the peer educators make information easy to understand”

What we learned: Youth Truth underlines …

• the importance of partnership working

• that holistic, intensive support is the only way to include the most vulnerable young parents and to ignite their potential

• young parents’ extreme vulnerability to change, whether forced (eg rehousing) or voluntary (eg new relationship)

• that we must greatly over-recruit, incentivise and find more compelling ways to explain the relationship of formal educational qualifications to better-paid employment

St Michael’s will continue to develop and test new ways to support parents in today’s society.

Download the full report www.stmichaelsfellowship.org.uk/content/2226/Peer-Education-Programme