Spring HAF Report 2023

SPRING HAF REPORT 2023

Blackburn & Darwen Youth Zone —

Spring HAF Report 2023

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page3-Introduction

Page4-STATSBreakdown

Pages5-8-JuniorProvision(8-12years)

Pages9-11-YouthProvision(13-18)

Pages12-13-Street-ZoneProvision

Pages14-15-FoodProvision

Page16-YoungLeaders

ThisApril,Blackburn&DarwenYouthZonecelebrated the start of the new season with our Spring Zone HAF club from Monday 10th April to Saturday 15th April across both of our sites. This spanned the service in our junior sessions, youth sessions and our detached andoutreachofferinthestreetsofDarwen.

Our HAF club coincided with Ramadan and Easter and was a perfect opportunity to celebrate both with our young people and wider community. Our young people decided that spring and growth should be the themes using these as a metaphor the promotion of wellbeing and wider exploration of our members' place and contributiontoourcommunity.

Alongside our young people we designed an exciting activities programme for both our Blackburn and Darwensites.Youngpeoplecameupwithideasonhow we could celebrate our themes through exciting activities and together we agreed the plan. Young peoplewereencouragedtoincludethingstheymaynot have tried before and we were delighted with the final result. These pages are a summary of what was a briliantweekofyoungpeopleandyouthworkersalike!

Junior Provision (8-12 years)

This Easter holiday junior members, aged8-12,enjoyedatotalof64hours of activities with us across both our venues in Blackburn and Darwen. Young people across the borough were encouraged to “spring up and jumpoutthishalfterm”,toenjoyan action-packed week of fun and educationalactivities.

The themes for each day ran parallel acrossbothsites Throughoutthefour days of the holiday club, young people had the opportunity to focus onourthemesof:GrowYourMindand GrowWithin.GrowYourself.GrowYour CommunityandGrowTogether.

A key strength in the structure of sessions at Youth Zone is the promotion of choice amongst the young people, allowing them to have the autonomy to decide which activitiestheywouldliketoparticipate in and when. Once the programme was developed and finalised alongsideouryoungpeopleeachday they were then able to dip in and out of activities with whatever took their fancy. We have found using this delivery method maintains greater levels of engagement as young people develop their interests Of course, we also took the opportunity to encourage our young people to alsotryactivitiestheymayhavenever donebefore.

The programme had something to suit everyone’s interests so there was always an option that would satisfy eachindividual'stastesorinterests.

The programme boasted a variety of activities so there was something to suit everyone’s interests, something for those who enjoy being active whilst also having activities for those youngpeoplewhoarecreative.

Asspringisoftenatimereflectedwith resetting and new life, young people wereencouragedtousethefourdays as an opportunity to reflect and reset whilst on their break from school so thattheycouldreturntotheirlearning with a refreshed mindset and have goals set for themselves. An activity which sparked much interest was meditation.

We created a tranquil environment in our health and wellbeing room with yoga mats, calming music and soft lighting where young people had a space to relax, reflect and practice gratitude. This was reflected at our Darwen venue with the use of bean bags and soft lighting in the gaming space.

Young people engaged well in this activityandrequestedthatthiswas

offeredeachdayoftheweek.Thistied inwiththeotheractivitiessuchasthe opportunity to create positive affirmation postcards, create vision boards for their spring and summer monthsandtoparticipateinselfcare makeovers.

Young people enjoyed baking, cooking and basic food preparation activities throughout the week In sessions across one of our days young people at both sites enjoyed preparing a vegetable soup. Young people were able to develop an understanding of the simplicity of making a soup with whatever leftover vegetablestheremaybeinthehouse

Youngpeopletooktheirsouphometo share with their families along with a recipe card so they could transfer the skills and knowledge they had learnt whilst at the youth zone and implement it at home Young people also enjoyed making fresh fruit smoothies, baking cakes and making fruit kebabs. In addition to preparing the foods, young people picked up some basic life skills by arranging the area for food preparation and cleaning up after the activity was completed.

We encouraged young people to get active with a “Cycle to London” challenge We calculated the distances from Blackburn Youth Zone and Youth Zone Darwen to the centre of London and challenged our members to collectively cycle the total distance by taking it in turns cycling a number of miles using one ofourexercisebikesfromourgym

Young people embraced the challenge and enjoyed contributing miles to the total distance as well as encouragingtheirpeersandcheering themon.

To add to the fun, young people enjoyed performances from highly acclaimed performers from Taz Entertainment. Young people in Darwen enjoyed a magic show from Scoop whilst young people in Blackburn enjoyed the “Funtaztic Game Show” with Taz and Magic Marvin. Young people enjoyed these performances and had the opportunity to get involved with the funofgoingheadtoheadinteamsto competewitheachotherinaseriesof sillychallenges.

As part of our Grow Your Community and Grow Together days young people had the opportunity to share theirviewsontheirlocalcommunities in Blackburn and Darwen in a “My Blackburn and Darwen” activity. Working in small groups, members discussed their favourite things about their local area, a lot of members expressed they enjoyed the convenience of local shops and their shortwalktoschool.

Young people were also asked what they would do to improve their local area Members expressed that they felt some of their local areas could appearmessyorcouldbebrightened up with the addition of flowers or wall art etc. A group of six young people contributedtoacommunitylitterpick socialactionprojectintheirlocalarea ofDarwen

Young people planned the route they wanted to take highlighting litter hotspotsaroundthetowncentresuch as the market square car park and aroundthelocalshops.Youngpeople made a TikTok and Instagram reel to educate other young people about theimportanceoflitterpicking.Young people also enjoyed decorating plant potsandplantingavarietyofbedding plants and seeds for them to decorate around the Youth Zone and theirhomes.

Our Darwen venue boasts a fantastic music and podcasting suite operated by We Are Noise. Working in partnership with We Are Noise we were able to deliver music sessions during each of our sessions. Young people enjoyed producing their own music, recording songs and enjoyed lotsofsinging

For this HAF we did not organise a pickup service from any of the local areas within the borough. However, we had a small number of parents and carers contact the youth zone to query whether a pickup and drop off service would be something we were able to offer as families expressed they would struggle transporting their children to and from the youth zone but were keen to get their children involvedwiththeactivitiesonoffer.

Followingthis,wewereabletoprovide a pick up and drop off service for a small number of young people so they did not miss out on the opportunitytobeinvolved.

Overall, our Spring Zone HAF was a fantasticexperienceforallinvolved.

'

’The bouncy castle was definitely the highlight of the Spring Zone Holiday Club for me. I had so much fun jumping around with my friends and even challenging them to see who could do the most flips and I can't wait to do it all again next session!’'-JuniorMember(10)

‘’The Spring Zone Holiday Club was so much fun! I loved doing all of the different activities, especially planting flowers and playing games with my new friends. The staff were really nice and made me feel welcome.’’-JuniorMember(11)

‘’As a single parent, it can be tough to find affordable activities for my kids during school breaks. The Spring Zone Holiday Club was an absolute lifesaver for us. The free mealswereahugehelp,andmykids had such a great time participating in all of the fun activities. I really appreciateeverythingthatyoudoto support families in the community.’’-Parent

‘’I was hesitant to sign my daughter up for the Spring Zone Holiday Club because she can be quite picky about the activities she enjoys. However, she had an absolute blast and has been begging to go back ever since. The staff were amazing withherandmadeherfeelwelcome and included. Thank you for providing such a fantastic experienceforher.’’-Parent

Junior Highlights

youth Provision (13-18 years)

This year ' s Easter HAF was themed aroundtheideaofgrowth,lookingat ourselvesandhowwedevelop,the4 days activities were all centred around the growth in mindset and howwecandevelopourselves.

Alongside the use of all areas of the youth zone we included a variety of activities to strengthen our offer and utilise the theme of setting ourselves upforthefuture

We ensured that our program was fun, engaging and offered something for everyone as well as support people trying new things and gain transferable skills that they can use andenjoyagainandagain

DayOnewastoGrowYourMind,Grow

Within and focus on young people setting goals and trying something new, talking points were around what is a healthy mind and we included a mix of physical activities like dodgeball, UV sports and basketball alongsidecreativeactivitiesinTieDye and henna. Young people also took part in challenges like egg drop and team building problem solving assault courses. We also ran consultations in the gym about what itmeanstobehealthyanddisplaying some of the myths about dieting and supplements.

Day Two we looked at Grow Within again asking young people to think about what they enjoy doing and asked them to try new things like easel painting with live objects and Zentangle to help with mindfulness, again we had lots of high energy activities and asked young people to think about what they did as a child andwhattheyenjoyed,weincludeda magician in the session who came and ran a fun interactive game show that allowed young people to have funandbesillyandrememberwhatit was like as a child with no worries or concerns

The day was a real hit and young people laughed and joined in together to have fun, this set the tone for the remainder of the week when we then started to look beyond ourselvesandlookedatwherewelive

Day Three Grow your community this session focused on sharing our new mindfulness and positive outlook and how we could share this with our friends,familyandneighbours.

Young people decorated plant pots and planted flowers and encouraged themtogivethemouttomembersof their family, friends and their local community.

They also looked at ways to encouragemorepeopletojoininand were challenged to bring a friend, tell someone new and spread joy Young people also enjoyed playing a range of board games and this has led to some great conversations about family time, what does that mean for people and also how much time do we actually spend together. Young people have formed new friendships and enjoyed baking together and sharingfood.

DayFourwasourcelebrationdayand our theme was Grow Togetherrecognising the great work done throughout the 4 days young people reflected on how great they felt and what fun they had. We recognised thatRamadanfellwithinthistimeand young people and staff enjoyed breaking fast together and sharing in theirstoriesandintheirexperiences.

Likeeveryfestival,oreventit'sgreatto share in celebration and what our achievements have been, HAF this Easter has brought about laughter, friendship, an opportunity to explore and most importantly grow in our knowledge, understanding and skills and the fact it's all been done whilst havingfunhasgottobethebestpart ofwhatwedo.

Givingyoungpeopletheopportunity to develop themselves, develop others and recognise their dreams andaspirationshasbeenamazing.

‘

’I had so much fun playing sports anddoingarts&craftsattheYZ.The activities were a great way to stay active and creative during the holidays. I also appreciated how the clubwasincludingdifferentcultures, likecelebratingRamadan. It was a cool way to learn about different perspectives and connect withotherssuchaswhattheyeatto break their fast and like my friends talking about the difference in the 2 Eid’s Muslim celebrate."- Youth Member16

‘’I didn't really know what to expect from the Holiday Club, but it ended up being actually really good! I learnedalotabouttakingcareofthe environmentandgottotryoutsome new sports and activities. But honestly, the highlight for me was the food, the stir fry was alright you know."-YouthMember14

‘’Yesterday was a good day at the Youth Zone! I had a good time playing sports, getting creative with the arts & crafts activities, and laughingmyheadoffatthehilarious clownperformance. It was great to be around so many other young people and meeting new peo The Hol helped m and dev Member

Youth Highlights

Street-Zone Provision

As part of our Spring Zone service offer, we embedded a detached and outreach aspect of the programme, in order to reach out into the community to those that we cannot engagewithinthecentre.

The premise of detached is to go out into the environment of the young people that we aim to work with, engaging with the local community along the way and spreading the messageofsocialcohesion.

The route for or chosen area comprises local hotspots that young people congregate in, as well as areas that have been identified to us by local council or partner organisations to have a high level of ASB.ThisweekofHAFthisAprilsawus complete 3 routes of detached sessions in our Darwen locality (1 sessionhadtoberescheduleddueto staffsickness)

In our detached sessions, we followed the Spring Zone programme and delivered the 4 pillars of this- Grow Your Mind, Grow Yourself, Grow Your Community and Grow Together. This was then altered so that it could be deliveredinanoutreachsetting,inthe streetsofDarwenorinlocalmulti-use gameareas.

The critical aspect of this detached provisionistonotonlyofferengaging activities, but to provide meals and food options to the local community The Spring Zone HAF detached provision provided an amazing 76 food parcels to young people and theirfamilies.

This was out of a total of 100 meals prepped for the routes, and the remaining 24 were donated to a local DarwencharityNightSafe.NightSafeis a provision that provides safe and stable accomodation for young people who have found themselves without homes. The food parcels provided included a variety of sandwiches, crisps, fruit, juice and chocolates. This was also given alongside bottles of water and hot chocolatesduringthedetachedroute and we were also able to provide 32 hot drinks to young people while out inthecommunity

The activities we delivered during Spring Zone detached were all in the spirit of growing ourselves and our community, and this was adapted in order to be able to deliver the programme in a street-based environment. Our main driving tool in detached is to provide a public presence,inwhichweengagedin

issue-based discussions with young people,anduseyouthworktrainingto support them to make positive life choices Alongside this, we delivered multipleactivitiesforphysicalexercise in the local MUGAs. This included community football matches, including the use of the local football ground pitches, community cricket games and community litter picking routes

The route for the litter picks were advised by young people from our centresessions,whohadexperienced thelocalhotspotsforrubbishandhad planned a detailed route for the litter picktonavigate

This also allowed for young people from our junior provision to join the litter pick, and collect a total of 8 bin bagsfullofwastefromthelocalarea

The sports aspect of our offer was delivered in full despite the poor weather conditions at times, and young people enjoyed playing football and cricket games against the detached staff team and other young people in the neighbourhood This was particularly engaged with at the AFC Darwen pitches, where 26 l d t k t i

‘The youth zone gave me and my family free lunch grab bags including sandwiches, drinks and fruits.Theyreallyhelpedmeandmy familyaswearefindingitdifficultto affordfoodatthemomentduetothe costoflivingcrisis’’.-Detached(15)

‘Me and my friends were chilling in thestreetsandtheyouthzoneteam came and gave us some free food and hot chocolate in the stormy weather. Thanks youth zone, that was really nice of you.’ - Detached (16)

‘Thankyouyz.Theyzwasgivingout freefoodgrabbagsonthestreetand I took one for myself and I asked if I

Food provision

ThisEaster,ourSpringZoneHAFfood offer centred, as always, on providingouryoungpeoplewithfree meals within our service. These meals are designed with young peopleinmind,andpromotehealthy eating habits, home-cooked nutrition and recipes that our young peopleknowandlove.

These meals range from freshly cooked hot meals in session, to fruit platters and to detached food grab bags for our detached and outreach StreetZoneoffer

Our meals this HAF included recipes suchaschickenandvegetablestirfry, macaroni cheese, pasta pots, fruit smoothies, jacket potatoes and salads, chicken thighs in gravy, fruit platters,spaghettiandmeatballsand vegetariansausagepies.

Allofthesemealswereenjoyedbyour members of all ages and across both sites, and our Street Zone detached service.

Alongside this, we duplicated our efforts to educate young people on the importance of healthy eating habits, but hosting activities such as smoothie or mocktail making in our sessions, in order to educate our members on portion sizes, sugar intakeandeatingtheir5aday.

Date

Food Menu

Youth

Juniors Snacks

Monday10th April

Chinese Chickenor BeefStir-fry withnoodles andtoppings

N/A Fruit Healthyfruit smoothies

Tuesday11th April

PastaPotswith Tomatoor CheeseSauce androasted vegetables

Wednesday 12thApril N/A

Macaroni JacketPotatoes

Cheese withfillings

Sandwiches

Chickenin Vegetable

gravy,new potatoesand broccoli PastaBake

Thursday13th April

Panini’sandsalad

Chickenwrapswith salad,seasoned potato wedges

Friday14th April N/A

saladand seasoned potatowedges

ChickenBurgers with VeggieSausage andbeanpie withvegetables

banana smoothies

Healthy Yogurts Fruit

Yogurts Fruitkebabs

Meatballsin Sandwiches tomatosauce Yogurts Fruitkebabs

HealthyFruit smoothies Fruit

Young Leaders

OurYoungLeadershavecompleteda total of 62 hours over HAF as part of their 6 month accredited programme.

These young leaders (aged 13-17) completed their training prior to HAF, which covered safeguarding, boundaries, managing challenging behaviour and more, to ensure they could put everything they’ve learnt into practice when working with our juniormembers.

HAF was the perfect opportunity for them to be exposed to real life youth work, and gave them an environment to thrive, whilst completing a crucial part of their Level 2 AQA in Youth LeadershipinaYouthenvironment.