• School Leadership Days
  • 11 September 2008
  • 13 September 2007
  • 14 September 2006
  • 14 September 2005
• Working With A Charity
  • The Second Rank Fellowship Charities Evening
  • Charities Evening Report 2006
    • Attending Charities
    • Photos
• Recent CAP Reports
  • Ross Jenkins
  • Hannah Partridge
  • Farzin Mirshahi
  • Archie Wardlaw
  • Robert Sharpley
  • Sarah Potts at the Ellesmere Youth Project
  • Daniella Smith at All Saints Normanton Youth Project
  • Josh Williams at the Hope Family Centre
• Earlier CAP Reports

Rachel Merriman - The Salmon Youth Centre

The task: In her second visit to the organization, Rachel wanted to work with diverse age groups helping the professional youth workers.

Rachel’s report: My initial aims when I went to the Salmon Youth Centre this year were to continue to get to know more about how the Salmon Youth Centre worked and also how it had adapted to no longer having the building which was there last year. I also wanted to continue to develop my understanding of working with different age groups of young people and different backgrounds of young people. In particular, I wanted to improve my confidence when working with the slightly older young people. I think that I have met my initial aims for this year. I felt that I have continued to develop my understanding of youth work from the point at which I left off last year. It was often easier to get to know the young people more, as the groups were a lot smaller than the previous year due to the limitations of the buildings the clubs were held in. I also got to know a lot more about the preparatory work for clubs. I was able to do quite a lot of work for the launch of the new Young Mums support group. This also helped me to get to know the area of Bermondsey better, as well as to understand more about this particular problem and how it is being tackled in the Bermondsey area.

During my two weeks at Salmon this year I planned and organised a cookery session and an art session for the 6-9’s club independently. I also continued to develop relationships with young people from 6 to 16 from the Bermondsey area. I also worked with two different groups from the Geoffrey Chaucer School who had been identified as ‘ likely to offend’. This I found particularly interesting, as it was something that had not been running the year before and was initially quite challenging. I also worked quite closely with a group when we took them canoeing. Whilst there, I also learnt how important it can be to be adaptable, as situations do occur which means things must change.

Over the two weeks my confidence continued to grow when working with the young people and I am looking forward to continuing to get to know some of the young people from the 10-13’s group when I go with them to Little Canada at the beginning of August. My work this year will definitely help next year when I start university, as this will be another very different experience. My time both this year and last year at the Salmon Centre Youth Centre has given me the confidence to tackle this and any new other situations that I may face in the future.