At the start of the lockdown, fears were raised over several young people who had been reliant on the interventions of Positive Futures for a number of years. For these young people, their time spent at Positive Futures symbolised times of happiness and safety, so with that safety net no longer available in the same way, the youth charity was concerned about the long-term impacts on their young people. One example of this was YP1, who had been a participant of Positive Futures for a number of years, flourishing and growing in confidence and social skills as a result of their time with the youth development charity.
The story so far
YP1 had been a member of one of the weekly sessions for a number of years, and has taken part in the likes of cooking activities and social action projects to name just a few. During this time, they had formed trusting relationships with the team at PF, as well as friendships with friends.
What happened
With the group sessions having to stop and schools closing, YP1 was left with nowhere to go, not much to do and very little support. They opted not to take part in online group activities and it wasn’t long before their mum was contacting Positive Futures to raise concerns about her child’s deteriorating mental health. During this conversation, it came to like that the reason why YP1 had declined to take part in the online sessions was due to having no access to technology, effectively leaving them cut off from the world.
Via their Invisible Child, Visible Child campaign, Positive Futures were able to source a tablet for YP1. This meant that once again, PF could support the young person and the did this via telephone or video calls, where they supported YP1 with the likes of school work, set challenges or just had a general chat.
The outcomes
As YP1’s confidence grew again, they have become more willing to engage and is now getting involved with an online social action project. They have been accepted to their first-choice secondary school for September, and scheduled to have some targeted one-to-one support from Positive Futures to support them during this transitional period.
