Positive Futures: Visit to Castle View
Essex VVU supports schools with evidence-based interventions and programmes, which support young people to improve their engagement and attendance at school.
We visited Castle View school last week to see one of these programmes, the ‘Positive Futures’ course, being delivered by ATF (Achieve Thrive Flourish) to a new cohort of students.
Positive Futures invites at risk young people to attend an eight-week course which looks at personal choices and decision making with the view to equipping young people with knowledge and skills to make informed decisions, good judgements and through this improve engagement with education.
Young people are identified based on a set criteria, including if they are struggling with attendance, whether they are displaying anti-social behaviours and if they have difficulty building relationships.
The course looks at the realities of criminal behaviour, the techniques used to groom and trap young people. It helps the young people on the course to think about who good role models are and whether they have trusted adults in their lives.
The course introduces the young people to guest speakers who have lived experience in county lines, drugs, gangs – they may have been to prison or struggled with their mental health but have turned their lives around and now want to educate others of the dangers of falling in with the wrong crowd and having negative influences in their lives.
The ATF course leaders encourage the young people to think about their own strengths and weaknesses, coping mechanisms and their aspirations and goals. They are encouraged to open up and work together. The young people build relationships as a group and with the ATF team.
At Castle View the young people listened intently and shared their own experiences. School teachers are present in the classroom to pick up on any issues or safeguarding concerns.
The support doesn’t just start and stop with the classroom-based course, depending on circumstance and need the young people are offered further support through counselling, mentoring, access to youth clubs and holiday clubs.
The Positive Futures course is one example of this type of work. The schools involved see a clear impact and positive change in their pupils – improved