“Well-trained and trustworthy workers will go a long way to helping young people identify a project as a safe place to be” ¹ AND “Non-formal education and youth support work can contribute to those factors which may protect young people from problematic drug use.” ²

Our experience has shown us that well-trained youth workers can make a big difference in helping young people with drugs and alcohol issues. Our development worker is a member of the Herts Drug Education Forum (www.hertsdef.org) and an approved educator and trainer.

For a sample programme (.pdf) from a recent training day please click the “thinking about youthwork” logo below. We are currently working on mapping our training more closely to the DANOS framework (Drug & Alcohol National Occupational Standards) and developing a course for youth workers possibly with Oasis College.

Photos from the "thinking about youthwork" training day we delivered in Colchester in March 2011 organised in partnership with CYO – we are looking forward to further work in partnership with CYO.

"Many thanks for two great sessions today - the students greatly appreciated your input and wisdom."
Richard Harvey, Director of Training, All Nations Christian College

Our development worker delivered 2 full days and 4 evenings of training for the HYV volunteer team on subjects as diverse as youth culture, counselling skills, drugs and alcohol, outreach and evangelism, introduction to eating disorders & self harm, and co-dependency. As a result they have launched a mentoring programme for young people in crisis in early 2011, having established a weekly drop-in during the previous year.

“As manager of Harlow Youth Vision I would like to say that I am delighted with the work that Mark Wood has done for HYV due to the funding Future+Hope received from Cross Pollinate. The high quality training sessions have been first class”. Luke Kingsmill

"I loved the training. Really informative and interactive. Everyone really appreciated it and got loads out of it. I wish we'd had time for more."
Revd. Michael Hunter, Director of YoungLife Herts & UK Trainer

We have delivered 2 afternoons of training on substance misuse work with young people for MAPS in Sutton. The team had varying levels of knowledge and experience so we covered a lot of ground from looking at drugs themselves to social, psychological and spiritual aspects, how people change (the cycle of change) and some basic motivational interviewing techniques.

Chris Parker, responsible for the LOFT project for youth with drug/alcohol problems comments:
“I was able to put the training into practise straight away using one of the activities in a youth work session the following week”