Donegal Youth Service Annual Report 2018

ANNUAL REPORT

2018 Donegal Youth Service mission “aims to offer young people opportunities to learn and develop through youth work processes in a safe and enjoyable way.”

TABLE CONTENT

2018 DYS BOARD OF DIRECTORS AND CORE STAFF MEMBERS

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2018 DYS HIGHLIGHTS 2 LETTERKENNY YOUTH INFORMATION CENTRE 6 YOUTH TALK 9 YOUNG CARERS PROJECT 10 WORLDWIDE VOICES PROJECT 11 LOFT 12

YOUTH OUTREACH PROJECT 15 YOUTHSCAPE 16 REACTIV8/2 17 DONEGAL YOUTH COUNCIL 18 BREAKOUT PROJECT 20 DAYBREAK PROJECT 21

2018 DYS FINANCIAL SUMMARY 23

organisation. Our focus is to strengthen how we can make the most impact to those who we serve and this will continue as we begin to plan for a new 3 year Strategic Plan.

Regional Directors Report Welcome to the 2018 Annual Report, where you will see from the information within that it has been another very busy year for Donegal Youth Service.

Through new funding opportunities, we have had substantial growth in our programmes and in the services that we can offer young people throughout Donegal.

Thankfully Donegal Youth Service continues to thrive with enthusiasm, impacting young people in a positive way. Engagement is voluntary so we work hard to make sure our programmes are welcoming, relevant and developmental. We can do this because of the ongoing support from volunteers and our amazing staff and their perseverance to overcome any challenge given them. Everyone in the organisation works tirelessly each day to create a safe and friendly service to those in need, offering various opportunities under the 33 varied youth projects and clubs we provide.

We are in the final year of our 3 year Strategic Plan whereby we have set realistic and achievable goals for the

I enthusiastically thank the Board for their leadership as they continue to raise the bar for improving how we do business, all of our donors, volunteers and staff for their unconditional support. It’s only with your help that can we make a positive impact on the lives of many young people and their families.

The contributions made by donors and volunteers are essential to our work and we thank you for your generosity.

Giving to Donegal Youth Service offers everyone we serve hope, a meal, a safe place to receive help, skills to secure a job, new opportunities and a chance for a brighter future.

Budget issues are still real and these uncertain times challenge us each day.

So if you are an existing donor, or wish to give for the first time, please visit our website, follow us on Facebook or call to make a donation. There are so many ways your support will help young people in the community.

Finally, It is our pleasure to invite to read all about the achievements of Donegal Youth Service in 2018 and if there is anything you would like to find out more about please get in touch.

Lorraine Thompson & Frank Dooley Regional Director & Chairperson

2018 DYS BOARD OF DIRECTORS Chairperson: Frank Dooley Treasurer: Paul McCusker Secretary: Ciaran Maguire Marina Carlin Shaun Dorrian Mary Mc Fadden Paul Kernan John Byrne Aoife McCullagh Tara Quinlivan Brid Foley Nicole Monaghan Declan Meehan 2018 DYS CORE STAFF MEMBERS Lorraine Thompson: Gareth Gibson: Charlene Logue: Frankie McGreevy: Sinead Murray: Maria Crossan: Louise Lynch: Katarzyna Kurzeja: Dominic McGlinchey: Lee Stephenson: Claire Bradley: Kathleen Gallagher: Carlyn Maguire: Laura Doherty: Michael Campbell: Michelle Wylam: Helen Simms: Jackie Ferry: Ciara Cronin: Pauric Bell: Yvonne Tilley: Breege McDonald: Layla Kuyper: Billy Banda: Jimmy McKinney: Michelle Sweeney:

Regional Director Youth Information Manager Youth Outreach Manager Loft Youth Worker Breakout/Loft Youth Worker Administrator Youth Talk Worker Youth Information Officer Youth Development Officer CE Supervisor Daybreak Youth Worker Daybreak Youth Worker Donegal Youth Council Coordinator Youth Outreach Worker Loft/Social Worker Reactiv8/2 Youth Worker Reactiv8/2 Youth Worker Youthscape Key Youth Worker Youthscape Facilitator Youthscape Key Youth Worker Youthscape Facilitator Youthscape Key Youth Worker PR Fundraising & Media Loft Youth Worker Loft Youth Worker Admin Assistant

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2018 DYS HIGHLIGHTS Daybreak County and Regional Winner for the National Lottery Good Causes Award and shortlisted nationally.

Letterkenny Youth Information Centre 2018 Internet Safety 283 sessions primary schools, secondary schools, parents’ groups, community and church groups.

Youth Talk supportive youth work service that offers free and confidential one to one listening ear support to young people aged 12-25 years.

Young Carers Continually growing in 2018. The project now has members from all over Donegal; Letterkenny, Milford, Ramelton, Carndonagh, Clonmany, Buncrana and the Bluestack Special Needs Foundation in Donegal town, thanks to funding from Healthy Ireland.

Worldwide Voices Project is now in its 5th year, meet every Wednesday night, and is a vital resource to young people with international backgrounds living in Letterkenny. The Worldwide Voices Project has forged very close links with the Syrian refugee resettlement programme that has resulted in 5 families directly engaging with the World wide voices and the drop in and other groups such as Fit 4 Life, and the Young Carer’s Project.

The Loft Drop In continued to be an important resource for the young people of Letterkenny. The Loft drop in is open late on Wednesdays and Thursdays and is open until 10pm on a Friday and from 2pm to 6pm every Saturday. Total footfall for last year was 4000 representing 750 individual attendees.

The Youth Outreach Project welcomed new staff member Laura Doherty to the team. Garda Vetting continued and processed 240 applications. Child Protection Awareness Programme Training; 12 courses delivered to 128 volunteers across the county in 23 affiliated clubs. We formed a new Young Volunteer Forum alongside the Adult Volunteer Forum and continued with our annual calendar of events including the Christmas Card Competition, “Let’s Do It” Summer Programme and youth club visits.

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Donegal Youth Council from the major agenda items that were voted on at the beginning of their term by their peers, the youth council 2016-2018 hosted ; Body Image ‘Shape of You’ event, Sexual Health and Education ‘Beyond the Birds and Bees’ event, Sports Recognition for Girls Roadshow, Facilities in Schools. The youth councillors also worked on projects with a variety of organisations such as; Older People’s Council, Donegal Road Safety Working Group, The ‘4 L’s’ Positive Mental Health Campaign with Donegal GAA, and briefing politicians, both local and national to name just some of their achievements.

BreakOut provides a safe, non-judgemental and fun youth work service to LGBTI young people and their non LGBTI friends in Donegal. In 2018 the demand for the service was ever increasing; larger numbers of referrals from across the County and young people presenting with progressively compound issues and needs.

With funding from Healthy Ireland BreakOut was able to expand the service from 16-23yrs to 12-30yrs and continue the work with the newly formed weekly groups in Glenties and Moville.

Reactiv8 2 (International Fund for Ireland) REACTIV8/2 engaged with 35 participants across areas including Letterkenny, Ballybofey, Buncrana and Strabane.

The project has a cross border, cross community target and focuses on engaging young people in building good relations, active citizenship and community relations work.

Youthscape is a cross-community interventionist programme developed in association with South West College, Donegal Youth Service and TIDES Training. The aim of the project is to enhance the capacity of young people, ranging from 14 – 24 years, to form positive and effective relationships with others from different cultural backgrounds enabling them to collectively make a positive contribution to building a divisionless, more inclusive society. 126 young people in Donegal engaged in the programme.

Website Our new website was launched in October: www.donegalyouthservice.ie

8549 11501

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Unique Users

22929

Website Sessions Pageviews

Website Posts

AND ALSO...

26 press releases published

493 new Facebook likes

Facebook Videos: 12138 minutes viewed

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Sammy The Caterpillar’s Guide to Growing Up The project aims to encourage and support parents and guardians to have healthy conversations with their children about their bodies, sexuality and relationships, by providing a range of age-appropriate books in each of the Donegal Libraries and Taobh Tíre points.

This project encouraged parents to have conversations with their children on a topic that may be difficult for them. We hope that parents will use the resources in their local library and feel more confident talking to their children about bodies, relationships and sexuality.

To accompany the library books, a ‘Sammy the Caterpillar - Guide for Parents and Guardians’ has also been produced, which explains why it is important to start these conversations with children at an earlier age and build on the information as children grow. The guide lists the books available to borrow for a variety of stages up to the age of 19, and gives suggestions for what children need to know and tips to get these conversations started.

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The Party in the Park 2018 was also one of the year’s highlights. The event was featured on the RTÉ website on their weekly ‘Things To Do’ feature in August.

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LETTERKENNY YOUTH INFORMATION CENTRE Another busy year for Information provision. The Youth Information team have continued to generate and disseminate information in a variety of ways on a host of topics.

Queries The demand for information continues to grow with the Youth Information team processing over 5,200 queries. The majority of queries this year came from females, accounting for over 67% of all queries. The queries processed by the team cover an array of topics but by far the popular topics were: Employment, Accommodation and Education related queries. A mixture of methods were used to deal with these queries from social media to email, but the face to face approach is still preferred by the majority of clients.

Internet Safety With a team of 4 facilitators 283 sessions were facilitated across Donegal. This work took the staff into primary schools, secondary schools, parents’ groups, youth clubs, community and church groups with the aim of increasing awareness in relation to staying safe online and enjoying all that can be good about the Internet through positive online behaviour. One of the biggest concerns that surfaced this year was the level of young people including primary school children exchanging inappropriate photographs online and communicating and interacting with strangers. Our work was featured in a “Good Practice in Youth Information“ booklet produced by the European Youth Information and Counselling Agency.

Echo The online newsletter continues to be a popular method to share information relating to the entire Donegal Youth Service. Our European volunteers play an integral role in the design and content generation for Echo, which is an exciting way to keep in touch with the various projects and programmes on offer in DYS. If you are interested in keeping in touch you can contact the Youth Information Centre and you can receive an alert when each new edition is available.

EVS This is the 11th consecutive European Volunteering project organised by Donegal Youth Service. We have had a long and successful relationship with the National Youth Agency: Leargas who are responsible for the funding. In 2018 we continued our relationship with 2 sending organisations from Romania and Spain: respectively.

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Our team of European Volunteers consisted of Maria Gnad and Marta Rovira from Spain and Maria Curecheru from Romania who have brought many valuable skills to the organisation and have supported the work of the DYS and particularly the Information Centre, The Loft and Donegal Youth Council.

AND ALSO... Find out more about DYS’s contribution to the Media The Leader Countywide distribution: 20,000 copies every month Columns published in 2018: 23 “Lyla and DYS team supply very important advice and information which serves the younger demographic in Donegal extremely well.

We have had a column by the DYS in the Leader since it’s inception and it’s now part of the fabric that our local readers have come to love. One of the biggest misconceptions in current culture is that young people do not read newspapers anymore, thanks to people like Lyla and the DYS we have proved this is actually not the case!”

Neil Murray, Editor The Leader Newspaper

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European Work During the year we have further embraced the European dimension in our work.

There have been numerous projects funding under Erasmus+ that we have either been the main beneficiary or co-beneficiary. These opportunities have enabled us to develop existing partnerships and to source new partnerships across Europe which ultimately has allowed us to create new and exciting opportunities for the young people we work with.

In 2018 the YIC managed a very successful exchange programme with young people from France coming to Letterkenny to take part in a media skills summer programme. Additionally, a delegation arrived in November from the Czech Republic to get involved in a Study Visit enabling them to observe youth work practice in DYS and how we embrace technology in our work. These events proved very valuable in terms of networking and information sharing.

Detached Project Part of a National roll out in ten contrasting communities across the country, Donegal Youth Service have been assigned the village of Convoy. The detached project intends to bring opportunities to young people who are not currently engaging in other service provision. Detached youth workers are on the street in Convoy at least one evening a week and willing to provide information, support, advocate for, and motivate the young people in the community.

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YOUTH TALK Youth Talk is a supportive youth work service that offers free and confidential one to one support to young people aged 12-25 years who present voluntarily. The service is universal and available to all young people to help them cope with any issue they are experiencing in their life. During 2018, 121 young people and their families were supported by Youth Talk with 934 individual one to one sessions completed.

121 young people and their families were supported by Youth Talk staff with 934 individual one to one sessions completed. The most common referral source for the year was self-referral closely followed by parent referrals. Combined they made up 78% of referrals.

Our open-door policy which allows young people and their families to directly use the service without a third-party referrer means clients and their families are voluntarily choosing to attend the Youth Talk service.

Taken from a sample of 12 young people, the most common issues experienced are personal stress and managing emotions (20%). Problems with interpersonal relationships including friendship and relationship issues and loneliness combines to account for 24% of the issues. Family conflict and separation (17%) and identity and life choices (17%) are prominent problems young people are experiencing.

The impact of problems on young people

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YOUNG CARERS PROJECT The Young Carers project is part funded by Tusla, CYPSC and Healthy Ireland. The project has been growing in 2018, we now have 45 young carers that we work with on a regular basis. 20 Young Carers received 1 - 1 support in 2018. The Young Carers have taken part in team building activities, sports activities, art workshops and the Party in the Park 2018. The project brought Young Carers on a 2 day respite activity break in June 2018 at the Cavan Centre Ballyjamesduff where the group met with other Young Carers Projects from all over Ireland to take part in team building activities. The Young Carers Project had a meet and greet with the Children’s Ombudsman Niall Muldoon at the Cavan Centre.

The group went on a day trip to the Glen Adventure Centre. The project now has members from all over Donegal such as Letterkenny, Milford, Ramelton, Carndonagh, Clonmany, Buncrana and the Bluestack Special Needs foundation in Donegal town, thanks to funding from Healthy Ireland. The Young Carers fit4life group has been running weekly in Letterkenny with the group taking part in physical activities and developing healthy habits and lifestyles. The group has a steady footfall of 20 people each week.

Donegal Daily 87k likes on Facebook Total articles tagged ‘Donegal Youth Service’: 26 “DonegalDaily.com is a breaking news website covering news of every aspect in the county. Press releases from Donegal Youth Service are an important way for us to share information relevant to young people in Donegal. With perfectly written articles and imagery provided by DYS, we can easily publish regular news from the service and act as an information link between DYS and the wider community. We appreciate all PR that is provided, as it helps us cover other positive aspects of young people’s lives that are separate from other news updates we receive, eg from schools. “ Rachel McLaughlin, Editor DonegalWoman.ie Donegal Daily Reporter

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WORLDWIDE VOICES PROJECT This project is a vital resource to young people with international backgrounds living in Letterkenny. They meet every Wednesday night and the group is very well attended and going from strength to strength. The young people receive support from each other as well as support and advocacy from the loft staff. The Worldwide Voices Project has forged very close links with the Syrian refugee resettlement programme that has resulted in 5 families directly engaging with not just the World wide voices but with the broader drop in and other groups described below such as Fit 4 life young carers project..

30 young people reported gaining new leadership skills as a result of taking part in the leadership skills training offered as part of the group. 8 young people reported direct assistance in gaining employment as a result of engaging with the World Wide Voices Project. 7 young people were helped to apply for citizenship. 6 young people were helped to apply for student grants. 10 young people were helped to find accommodation. Project evaluations report a high level of satisfaction with the worldwide voices project with 90% of young people reporting gaining supportive friendships and learning new skills as a result of attendance at the weekly worldwide voices ethnic minority support and advocacy project.

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LOFT We experienced an expansion in the number of young people benefitting from our targeted individual work. Two members of Loft staff completed their professional training in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy which has enriched our offer to young people.

Our post engagement evaluation forms looking at young people’s experience of accessing individual support have indicated the following.

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Young people finding new friends.

The development of skills and attitudes such as persistence, adaptability and self-reliance; Increased levels of self-confidence; Increased opportunities for self-expression; The development of critical thinking skills; Raised levels of self-awareness; Overall improvement in well-being.

Young people report being able to discuss difficulties and personal problems they may be facing with a supportive adult at the Loft drop in. Young people accessing the Drop in facility find it easier to access targeted individual support.

Young people identify with a sense of “owning” the space they are instrumental in creating the environment. They are involved in all aspects of the drop in from the decor to the lay-out. The drop-in footfall has increased by 400 compared to last year. A sample group of young people have indicated that they value the opportunity to meet up with their peers in a supervised yet informal environment.

Total footfall for last year was 4000 with this number representing 750 individuals.

80 young people took part in our 5 week summer project, where they created art pieces and a promotional video for the Party in the Park, took part in Cookery, Rock School multi-activity camp and summer transition programme. The feedback about the summer project from evaluations and conversations with parents was very positive the young people indicated an excellent level of satisfaction with the Loft summer programme. Those taking part showcased their work at the annual Donegal Youth Service Party in the Park.

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In 2018 the Loft project in partnership with the community family support network have engaged with the Meitheal process that is designed to offer holistic support to families. The Meitheal system is proving very effective for bringing a whole family and partnership approach to the work of the Loft.

“I like being around my friends and performing occasionally. Singing boosts my confidence and it makes me feel closer to my friends. I also love listening to my friends as its very lovely and joyful” A new Young Women’s group started in 2018 and evaluation interviews indicated that participants showed increased empathy and self-awareness as a result of taking part in the evidenced based group work practices. This project is composed of some young women who have been referred to us due to significant anti-social behaviour.

“I don’t have many friends, coming here has helped me to make more friends”.

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YOUTH OUTREACH PROJECT The Youth Outreach project welcomed new staff member Laura Doherty to the team as the new Youth Outreach Worker. Laura has a background in drama and performance incorporated into her youth work so watch out for new and exciting programmes in the coming months! We also said goodbye to Sheena Boyle Laverty, who went on to pastures new after 10yrs of working with the youth clubs and projects across the county.

Safeguarding was high on the agenda with the introduction of Mandatory Garda Vetting, the organisation identifying as a ‘Relevant Service’, producing a ‘Safeguarding Statement’ for the organisation, staff and is now on display in all of our Member Youth Clubs and Projects. As a legal requirement that all volunteers and staff are Garda Vetted we processed 240 applications in 2018.

Child Protection Awareness Programme Training, accredited through the National Youth Council of Ireland was delivered across the youth clubs and projects to staff and volunteers with 12 courses delivered to 128 individuals during the year. This training, combined with Garda Vetting ensures a level of competency and compliance in Safeguarding young people across the membership of DYS. 16 Youth Clubs received supportive visits to assist them with youth club development and programming. We assisted in the setup of a new Club ‘Meraki’, unfortunately the club suffered extensive damage as a result of a fire in the Plaza building so won’t be up and running for a while. We wish them all the best.

Malin Head Youth Club celebrated their 50th birthday and held a wonderful event in the Youth Club to celebrate and acknowledge all of the work over the last 50yrs.

Congratulations on such an achievement.

All 23 x clubs commenced their National Quality Standards Framework for Voluntary Led Youth Groups and are working solidly towards the Quality assurance expected by the Department of Children & Youth Affairs. We would like to acknowledge the hard work being undertaken by local youth club volunteers who have this additional work to do.

The (ETB) Education & Training Board Youth Club grant was applied for by local youth clubs, with 6 x clubs supported in their application by the Youth Outreach staff.

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The Annual Flag Day took place in May and over €9,000 was raised by local youth clubs – this money remains within the clubs that carry out the collections. This is a much needed boost to local youth clubs and enables them to provide fun activities, cover rent and other associated costs.

The 3rd ‘Let’s Do It’ Summer Programme took place in 6 clubs with 220 young people enjoying the fun. Laura and her team were amazing and delivered lots of fun arts & crafts, sports and personal development activities during the month of July.

150 young people took part in the Christmas Card Competition, with Matthew Clifford from Cockhill Youth Club also winning the All Ireland Nollaig Competition (for a second year in a row)! Well done Matthew.

3 x Adult Volunteer Forum meetings took place, to plan, deliver and review the Youth Club year. We cannot do our work without the support and local knowledge of our youth club volunteers. These meetings are vital to ensure a solid programme of activities and events that are relevant to our youth clubs.

2 x Young Volunteer Forum meetings took place and the group enjoyed a residential at Errigal Hostel where they worked on getting to know each other and began their leadership awareness training. One of the main functions of the group is to co-design and contribute to the overall planning of the Youth Outreach programme in partnership with the Adult Volunteer Forum.

YOUTHSCAPE The Youthscape programme is a cross-community interventionist programme developed in association with South West College, Donegal Youth Service and TIDES Training.

It operates in Counties Donegal, Fermanagh and Tyrone, covering five areas, Ballybofey, Letterkenny, Omagh, Enniskillen and Dungannon and delivers a proactive, youth focused programme to 800 of the regions most marinalised young people.

The Youthscape programme focuses on a ‘co-design’ and ‘person-centred’ approach to learning and development, enabling the participants to have the opportunity to input into and form the structure and make-up of the programme. There is an opportunity for participants to become Peace Apprentices and to join the Youthscape Forum. Each young person is assigned a Key Youth Worker who will help support them throughout the programme and work with them to build good relations, become an active citizen in their community and support them to overcome barries to their progression. Participants are supported by staff to help them to progress to education, training or employment upon leaving the programme. 126 young people in Donegal engaged in the programme.

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REACTIV8/2 (International Fund for Ireland) REACTIV8/2 engaged with 35 participants across areas including Letterkenny, Ballybofey, Buncrana and Strabane. The project has a cross border, cross community target and focuses on engaging young people in building good relations.

Five young people worked towards exams in OCN Essential skills in English and Maths with potential third level opportunities in place in 2019.

Four young people in Buncrana successfully passed their Safe Pass training and all have been promised work locally during their summer holidays on the basis of this.

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DONEGAL YOUTH COUNCIL Donegal Youth Council is a group of 36 young people between the ages of 12 and 18 who strive to improve the lives of young people in Donegal by tackling issues identified by their peers throughout the county. The youth council organise various events based on these issues . Representing five different electoral areas, they are ambassadors for young people in Donegal.

The Donegal Youth Council’s Sexual Health Event ‘Beyond the Birds and Bees’ was a great success. There were 4 students from each of Donegal’s 27 secondary schools invited to attend the one day event on March 22nd 2018 in the Mount Errigal Hotel, Letterkenny with a total of 108 young people in attendance. Sexual Health and Education was voted as a key agenda item for the youth council 2016-2018 to work on.

There were four workshops during the day as well as a range of speakers, including Donegal Mayor Gerry Mc Gonagle who opened the event, Connie Mc Gilloway from the Sexual Assault Treatment Unit (SATU) and Dr Caroline Mohan- Mason , the Chairperson of the Sexual Health Forum Donegal. The workshops included: Relationships, Social Media, Mental Health by Mental Health Ireland, information on sexually transmitted infections delivered by Sonya Keeney (GUM Clinic).

The aim of the day was to develop young people’s personal skills, provide accurate information to young people regarding their sexual health and to compliment learning that young people are receiving within their schools, Youth Reach Centres or any youth services that they engage with. The evaluations showed that 90% of young people would like to see these workshops in their schools, with the STI Clinic and Relationships workshops topping the list.

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Both the Donegal Youth Council Mayor Amy Mc Coy & former Deputy Donegal Youth Council Mayor Conor Walker attended the annual Oireachtas Briefing in Mansion House, Dublin & met with their local TD’s. There were three asks on the day, ‘deliver a comprehensive overhaul a relationship & sexual health education in irish schools, building on best practice with no opt outs’. Both young people discussed the Sexual Health Event & their upcoming Agenda item, Facilities Audit.

Deputy Pringle TD offered the two youth councillors a tour around the Dail Eireann.

From the major agenda items that were voted on at the beginning of their term by their peers, the youth council 2016-2018 hosted ; Body Image ‘Shape of You’ event, Sexual Health and Education ‘Beyond the Birds and Bees’ event, Sports Recognition for Girls Roadshow, Facilities in Schools. The youth councillors also worked on projects with a variety of organisations such as; Older People’s Council, Donegal Road Safety Working Group, The ‘4 L’s’ Positive Mental Health Campaign with Donegal GAA, and briefing politicians, both local and national to name just some of their achievements. They spent many evenings and weekends working hard to improve the lives of young people in Donegal.

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BREAKOUT PROJECT

BreakOut provides a safe, non-judgemental and fun youth work service to LGBTI young people and their non LGBTI friends in Donegal for 12-30 year olds. Through the provision of group and one to one supports BreakOut provides a voice for LGBTI young people empowering them to realise they have the potential to effect change.

BreakOut is for young people who are experiencing difficulty in their lives and need supported to come to terms with their sexuality and take their place in society.

These young people benefit from a programme of one to one support, drop in and education programmes to help meet their individual needs. BreakOut works with young people from all areas of the county. It’s a unique service as we offers support to young people who do not feel confident enough to participate in the support group right and through their self-discovery. There is continued support offered to young people who have moved on from the group, with many young people contacting the project worker when in crisis and needing further support. As BreakOut is the only service for LGBTI young people in the county the project worker provides support to young people facing difficulties with their sexuality and also professionals, parents & teachers to guide them with best practice in dealing with young LGBTI people.

Young people have spoken of their isolation, fear of ‘coming out’, ridicule, and non-acceptance by families, and the wider community. Many have muted suicidal thoughts, have self-harmed, been physically, mentally and emotionally abused and are not ready or able to participate in generic youth projects.

BreakOut is a unique Youth Project in Donegal, specifically working with young LGBTI people from across the county. Typically, the work is diverse and distinctive.

The worker imparts information in schools and youth clubs, delivers training in LGBTI issues, and supports individuals with their LGBTI issues through a one to one listening ear service as well as providing a drop-in service twice a week in four separate locations, (Letterkenny, Moville,Glenties & Ballybofey).

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DAYBREAK PROJECT

Daybreak is an individually tailored Education and Personal Development programme to support young people. The programme is designed for First Year students through to Junior Certificate.  Daybreak builds on the strengths of the young people to support their personal and academic goals and helps them reach their full potential.

2018 was a great year for Daybreak with 31 participants progressing through Daybreak.

National Lottery Good Causes Award This year we had the opportunity to enter a national competition. This was organised by the National Lottery and TV3 which afforded us the chance to showcase our service to national audience. Thankfully we managed to be successful and a regional level winner and progressed to the final stages.

Unfortunately, we were not the eventual outright winners but the young people of Daybreak are all winners with many playing a key role in relation to TV interviews where they shared personal stories of what Daybreak means to them.

Trips Daybreak is not just about academic development but rather holistic personal development. With this in mind the participants had many opportunities throughout the year to get out of the centre and experience the likes of the day to day operations of a Garda Station which was kindly organised and facilitated by the JLO Garda Patrick McGlynn. Participants also got a chance to visit the ETB training centre and try their hand at some practical skills including virtual welding. Other more social trips were also included such as a trip to Dublin Zoo and Letterkenny Activity Centre.

How we operate?

Daybreak follows the academic year and is based in the Donegal Youth Service, Letterkenny. We also have satellite centres in Ballybofey and Raphoe.

So what does Daybreak provide: - A safe youth friendly space and understanding staff.

- Low numbers of participants; a max of 6 per day to ensure individually tailored support.

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- Group work facilitation and discussion of important youth issues including; relationships, coping strategies, communications, drug and alcohol issues, attitudes towards school, bullying. This provides a medium for peer education and positive relationship building for vulnerable young people, and a space to voice their opinions in a safe circle of trust.

- Advocacy for vulnerable young people within schools and statutory services such as well as continuous communication with the young person, their family, referrers and with agencies.

- A listening ear service.

- Parental support.

- Research and identification of progression routes and assistance.

- Group outings and activities.

- Summer Programme – sports and outings.

- Real life skills – preparation for the future – cookery, hygiene, money management.

At Daybreak our aim is to build/rebuild capacity for learning in the young person who has lost his/her appetite for learning. It may be that the child is overwhelmed by the “train station” nature of the large school. It may be that the child has been given to understand in a number of settings that he is a failure. Whatever the reason there is no doubt that when Daybreak is called the young person is ready to walk away from schooling and is ready to leave future learning and his/her self-esteem behind. We aim to work with this young person; to work with his parents and to work with a key link teacher in the school to help the child recover his self-esteem and their appetite for learning.

“My advice to anyone looking to attend Daybreak is to take this great opportunity as it will be a once in a lifetime experience and you will never regret it. You will be amazed at what you can achieve. If I can do it, anyone can as I am a totally different person to that person who walked into Daybreak that first day.”

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2018 DYS FINANCIAL SUMMARY

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2018 DYS Overview 18,146 Young people engaged 372 Adult volunteers 1,801 Adults trained 7,179 Young people trained 898 Young people engaged in one to one support 24 Youth clubs and projects 20 Youth events 62 Strategic Partnerships Charity #: CHY15027

Donegal Youth Service 16-18 Port Road, Letterkenny, Co.Donegal +353 074 912 9630 admin@donegalyouthservice.ie www.donegalyouthservice.ie