Over the past month Young People at Heart has been celebrating it’s 8th birthday!! In doing so we have enjoyed a birthday event in each area with our Fostering families and staff teams. Each event was held at an outdoor activity centre and our young people had the chance to take part in several different activities. We have been reflecting, following this period, how amazing, courageous, and resilient our young people are. The events we held are designed to provide activities that are not only exciting, but that push the young people out of their comfort zone, something that raises anxieties in all of us. We could not be prouder of all our children who rose to the challenge.
We sit in many meetings where behaviours are discussed and we have heard on numerous occasions how some of our young people struggle to concentrate, struggle with peers, and can’t follow instruction. In direct contrast to this, over the course of these events, we have seen children working as a team to build a large tower of crates, young people encouraging each other on the climbing wall, young people who were noticing if other young people were struggling, and showing them empathy and comfort, young people who could take turns, and lose graciously, young people who could listen to instructions and understand what they needed to do to keep themselves safe, young people who were so brave doing activities such as zipwire and abseiling when inside they were feeling very anxious. We are so impressed to see our young people push themselves to make the most of the opportunities that were available to them.
Young People at Heart provide a number of events for the children and Young People over the course of the year. This allows them the opportunity not only to try new activities, but it has also encouraged new friendships amongst the young people who look forward to seeing each other at each event. It creates an environment for them where they do not feel ‘different’, and they can see that there are lots of other young people in similar situations to them. One Foster Carer told us that the most recent event had changed her young person’s view of fostering and being in foster care. It does take commitment and organisation to put on these events, but comments like that reinforce to us why they are so important. Well done to everybody involved in the event organisation, but more importantly to the young people for being so courageous in joining in and supporting each other to achieve amazing things!
