Jay, a 14-year-old young person from North Liverpool, has recently reaped the benefits of accessing the fully-funded, Targeted Support Service via Positive Futures. Jay, who was referred to the youth development charity earlier this year for support with confidence and self-esteem, as well as improving his academic ability, has gone from strength-to-strength in recent months following the intervention.
As with so many young people, Covid-19 had impacted Jay in terms of his academic progress, with him falling behind in school. This had added to his lack of confidence in his own abilities which was leading to low self-esteem.
After initially being referred to the Targeted Support Service at Positive Futures, it was agreed that Jay would benefit from one-to-one sessions which included individual tutoring sessions with a qualified teacher. The initial plan was to deliver 6 such sessions, however, the team quickly recognised that Jay required additional support and so this increased to a total of 24 sessions.
His tutor reported early on that Jay was good at Math’s, but lacked confidence and some skills that would help him to flourish more in this subject, so a focus was placed on that subject area.
Jay engaged well with the support, attending all of his face-to-face and online sessions. Within the period of 6-months, the Positive Futures team have seen a marked increased in his confidence levels. He has developed his ability to think critically, solve problems and articulate his explanations perfectly in Mathematics as well, which has boosted his confidence when it comes to his academic studies.
This hard work has resulted in Jay moving up two sets in Math’s, meaning that he started the academic year studying for the higher-level exam rather than the Foundation level.
Jay commented:
“When I started tutoring, I didn’t feel very confident. Now I feel like I can do whatever is thrown at me.”
The Targeted Support Service at Positive Futures includes the likes of counselling skills, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), neurodiversity and Family Support Work. Their preliminary report, published earlier this year (just 10-months after launching this intervention), demonstrated the impact of this service to date. During this timeframe, the service helped participants to have a 79% reduction in social anxiety and an 81% increase in confidence on average.
