Youth Services
Youth Services
Amicus Youth Service values participation and active involvement where young people choose to be involved, not least because they want to relax, meet friends, make new relationships, to have fun, and to find support. The work starts from where young people are in relation to their own values, views and principles, as well as their own personal and social space and seeks to go beyond where young people start, to widen their horizons, promote participation and invite social commitment, in particular by encouraging them to be critical and creative in their responses to their experience and the world around them.
The aim of Amicus Youth Service is to develop a service which generates opportunities and services that are informed by mental health and wellbeing principles, providing opportunities for support and progression for young people that are cemented in localities where traditionally structured mental health services may fail to reach young people or where those services are limited in the range of services they can offer. This service will aim to work with young people, foster parents and the staff team to contribute to the personal and social development and economic well-being of young people within the context of a diverse society that can be achieved by helping:
- Mental health awareness
- Confidence in opinions
- Changing behaviour: handling anger and distress
- Responding to challenges and opportunities
- Pursuing opportunities beyond Amicus
- Build young people’s self-esteem and self-confidence
- Develop identity
- Develop young people’s ability to manage personal and social relationships
- Creating learning opportunities for young people to develop new skills
- Encouraging positive group atmospheres
- Building the capacity of young people to consider risk, make reasoned decisions and take control
- Helping young people to develop a ‘world view’ which widens horizons and invites social commitment
We aim to provide a high-quality service using DDP principles to strengthen the dyadic relationship between carer and young person. The service will be accessible to all young people through group work, activities and via an individual referral basis. We will offer young people new and challenging experiences that will stretch their knowledge, skills and attitudes in a way that enables them to reflect upon themselves as individuals so they can fulfil their potential to contribute as positive members of the community.
We will ensure young people have opportunities to have their voice heard in democratic, political and decision-making processes, and to provide programmes of recreational and sporting activities that offer fun, friendship, enjoyment and learning.
We will celebrate who young people are and what they have achieved, in order to promote a positive profile of their contribution to society.
The strength of the Youth Service lies in the relationship between its staff and the young people they work with; developed over time and which progress in accordance with the needs of those young people.
The youth service workers will form part of the network around the young people to assist and identify social and educational opportunities with a focus on strengthening the relationship between foster families and young people
