So what are we doing Now?

Youth Support is continuing to provide assessment and outreach services plus treatment and counselling programmes tailored to the individual case.

We are now also seeing more young refugees and unaccompanied minors some of whom have had harrowing experiences on their way to safety. A group attended our 2006 Youth Forum and found it very helpful. During 2009 we held Drama, Music and Art workshops for young Asylum seekers. If we can obtain funds we would like to provide better services and a centre for refugee youth.

Our film 'Asylum' is having its premier in January 2010 and will be followed by 'A Safe Place' about children in Afghanistan. Our Latest initiative is to provide  Services in Afghanistan including safe houses to help prevent the need for children to become refugees.

Our work in Jamaica continues and the education project has allowed one of our youth leaders Omar Richards to make it to University. We are helping him to complete a degree in journalism and trust this will prove a vehicle to spread positive messages to young people. Omar has done very well in rising above his difficult background as a youth in a very deprived and violent part of Kingston and is setting a wonderful example having won awards in every field imaginable including being praised as the best Student president and Student governor at Lambeth College.   Some of Omar's writing is being posted on our websites. Watch for further details.

Conference and seminars have been well attended and the 2004 conference was held in august 2004 at the University of the West Indies - The last one was our twentieth anniversary in 2006 and hopefully the next will be in Los Angeles as an inaugural event for our newly incorporated Youth Support USA (check the conference site). We also hope to have another London event in 2010. For training or seminars on particular subjects related to adolescence, child protection issues, sexuality and our research programmes please contact us with your enquiries.

Of course one of the major aspects of our interactive youth work has been our creative and drama workshops which have continued to flourish at our conferences and Youth Forums under the guidance of Leila Birch.  During the coming year we are also working on a drama project in Italy. Any volunteers who can work in a theatre project would be much appreciated.

Publications - we continue to produce our books but also have an on line literature service

Projects for training for Youth encompass print services - printing and T shirt / promo material printing. New internet and computer labs are being developed in Jamaica with Youth training and vocational experience on a variety of fronts including ecology and a new pet shop project although these have been severely held up by local weather conditions and other matters outside of our control.

An exciting development has also been in media - we have produced several videos of some of the teen pregnancy research, documentaries on the work of Neville Butler and the Child Cohort Studies; Some Youth Activities and are making some videos on health education subjects and drug problems etc. A collaborative venture funded by the ICCYFS (World Youth Studies) helped us to produce a three centre research video on teen pregnancy in London, Jamaica and Los Angeles. We hope to be able to follow this up with other videos including street youth in LA and some documentaries on prominent people in Adolescent care.

A spin off project of the videos has been the development of a digital processing and media project. Dial-Media.com