Young People Next Steps launches is Lincolnshire!

Our Lincoln team held a fantastic event last week to celebrate the launch of their Next Steps project. Next Steps is a project which supports people to develop the confidence, work skills, and life skills they need to live an active life in their community. This is a brand new project for Lincolnshire, and they're working with a brand new client group - in all other areas Next Steps works with adults and young people with learning disabilities, but in Lincolnshire alone we'll be working with youth offenders and young people at risk of offending.

Pictured: Next Steps members Dan and Lottie with the gecko!

The day was a great success, bringing together young people already on our projects in the area, a range of professionals from relevant organisations, and young people interested in joining the project. The professionals who attended the day included people from LEAP, Birchwood Youth Centre, Lincolnshire Police and the Youth Offending Service.

The day featured DJ workshops with local DJ tutor Eddy Menzel,  which was great fun. We also had a reptile workshop which was going to feature a gecko, tarantula and a snake... however, the tarantula was a bit mardy so stayed in his tank, and the snake had just eaten so they left him at home in case he decided that one of us could be pudding! Thankfully, the gecko was a great hit and made up for the lack of other reptiles!

The event was a great chance for young people and professionals to learn more about Next Steps from our project workers, and a lot of professionals were really keen to get us running workshops with the young people they work with who are caught up in the Criminal Justice System or have been identified as at a risk of offending.

We had a fantastic (but very tiring!) day, and are really looking forward to working with some of these young people in the next few weeks.

If you'd like to know any more about the Next Steps project in Lincolnshire, contact Project Worker Shell on shell.arliss@speakingup.org or 01522 706 584.