Student Volunteering Week 2016

If you were asked to describe what being a student is about what would you say? Studying until the early hours of the morning? Big nights out on the town? Making new friends? Or how about volunteering your time to positively impact the local community?

Since the 1890’s, university students have been volunteering in order to give back to their adopted communities. Over 125 years later students are still making a significant contribution in the communities where they live. A recent NUS study states that 57 per cent of students in further education are volunteering in their communities.

Student volunteering has been a huge part of ReachOut ever since we were founded in 1994 by a group of university students. Starting out with just 20 young people from Manchester, ReachOut now operates across two locations working with over 1,000 young people each year. As we use a one-to-one mentoring model this means that we’re also working with over 1,000 volunteers each year, with 92% of our current Manchester volunteers and 65% of our current London volunteers studying alongside their volunteering.

Each February we support the nationwide Student Volunteering Week to celebrate the amazing work that our student volunteers do. This year we have asked our young people to tell us how their mentor has helped them and will also be running several activities during our sessions to say thank you to our volunteers!

ReachOut would not be here without the time and dedication that our volunteers show us! Volunteering two hours a week may not sound like much but in doing so you are helping your young person to achieve their potential and go on to lead a good and happy life.

So to all of our volunteers, we want to say thank you, on behalf of ourselves and the young people we work with each week!

Demystifying character

I was delighted to attend the Department for Education’s Character Symposium last month, particularly as Abdullahi Ali Aden, a former ReachOut mentee, was asked to address the audience alongside Nicky Morgan MP, Secretary of State for Education.  Ali also sat on the panel for a Q&A session with Ms Morgan and did a great job talking about character in the ‘real’ sense throughout.

Ali Aden delivering his speech at the Character Symposium.

And that’s what I want to write about today. It’s great that Nicky Morgan and the DfE have chosen to promote character education, because I believe this can be a game changing differentiator in the lives of our most disadvantaged children, and our society as a whole.  The DfE is talking with increasing clarity on what character is, but this conversation is still muddled as organisations and schools try to work out how government policy and character links to their existing work and how to implement these new ideas in working practice.

Ali Aden on the panel with Nicky Morgan.

Since I started thinking more in this space, I’ve heard many things being referred to as character, such as well-being (including confidence and self-esteem), employability skills (such as leadership and teamwork) and mental health.  Following a report by the Sutton Trust last month, personality has become the latest inclusion in this clumsy grouping of terminologies which is confusing schools, charities, press and politicians alike. Nicky Morgan made a good start towards clarifying the issue at the Character Symposium by clearly referencing character, well-being and mental health as separate entities that we need to deliver for our kids, which is helpful, and hopefully the rest of this article will clarify further.

Character is about the qualities that enable a person to lead a good life and be a positive contributor to society; not necessarily to be ‘successful’ and climb the social mobility ladder.  Of course all these factors are very much linked together, but ‘success’, considered in the economic or career sense, isn’t what character is really about.  A person of good character might be a shop assistant, a stay at home parent, a celebrity footballer or a prime minister.  They could be rich or poor, loud or quiet. Character isn’t about professions, social mobility, earning more money, being a leader, an inspiration or even a person everyone admires – it’s about being a good person, someone who consistently makes the world around them better in small ways or large, and we need to remember that when we think about what we want to achieve with our various interventions to help young people in this space.

Young people from ReachOut taking part in social action, selling cakes for charity.

At ReachOut we have four character strengths which we support our young people to develop, and by doing so we help them grow up to be better people.  They are Self-Control, Staying Power, Fairness and Good Judgement.  A person who possesses all four of these strengths in good measure will be a good person. This person of good character will be a benefit to our society, not because they are likely to earn good money in a high flying career, but because they will be honest, hard-working, considerate of others and measured in their behaviour.  This person of good character will make the choices that lead to emotional well-being, and will be able to apply themselves to learn skills to the best of their ability. This person will choose to utilise such skills in the best way possible for themselves, their family and community, and they will have improved personal circumstances as a consequence of this careful decision making. Their personality, extravert or introvert in whichever sense of the word you mean it, or whether they have the aptitude and desire to become a future world leader or a celebrity footballer, won’t affect whether they become a good person, but their character, and the actions it produces, will.

Edward Timpson MP, Minister for Children & Families, closed the event, and in his speech he spoke of ‘demystifying character’ as something we are doing by discussing it at events like the Symposium. And yet I fear that by talking about character in such a vague and broad fashion we are doing the contrary – becoming increasingly confused about what we mean by character, and what we actually want to change.

Edward Timpson talking to Sam Johnson, mentee turned mentor.

Why is this terminology so important?  Because if we can’t identify what character is at the most fundamental level and communicate that effectively, then our work and effort in trying to build young people’s character will instead be used up in a series of interventions labelled as character, but really targeting other areas, many of which we’ve been pushing for years – such as promoting well-being or providing employability or life skills.  These causes are extremely valuable to our children and young people, but they are not the same thing as character education.  If we misplace our efforts to build character in this generation of school children we may waste the momentum in the field, and fail to make the difference we’re really looking for, for our children and our society as a whole.  So let’s be clear about what we mean when we say character education, and make sure we get it right!

Peter Blackwell
ReachOut CEO

Measuring character – is it possible? – should we try?

Maybe and yes!

ReachOut is already recognised for its approach to impact measurement: we track attainment and outcomes for the young people that we work with - attainment measures are a good hard external measure of achievement, and whether a student has gone on to work, training or employment is a good proxy for good judgement and character strength.

But we want to be recognised as the leading national charity focused on the character development of young people. This means we need to dig deeper - look at what we do, and find out how each aspect of it contributes to our outcomes so that we can ensure that our intervention has the maximum effect every time.

This evaluation will impact on everything we do – how we recruit, train and develop our staff, how we recruit, train and support our mentors, how programmes are structured, the character curriculum and how we deliver it, the focus on homework and also how we structure the club activities. It will help us to build the expertise and skills of every person in the organisation in order to deliver the best for our young people.


How will we do this? Collaboration is the key

We are collaborating with other charities, academics and measurement experts. We want to be a leader in an educational movement that raises the importance of character development in all schools – regardless of whether we are working with them directly. To do this we’ve worked closely with the Jubilee Centre of Character and Virtue who are doing some ground-breaking studies that demonstrate the importance of character in education and in the wider world; we’ve become part of the Fair Education Alliance so are working alongside organisations like Teach First and Save the Children to demonstrate the importance of character, wellbeing and social emotional skills in tacking educational disadvantage; we are being advised by the Education Endowment Foundation on evidence – they are a real centre of expertise in this and have been really generous with their time in helping us find the right measures to kick off this process. We are big fans of using existing measures and building up a body of knowledge across the UK – which is their objective too so we’ve got a lot in common. And finally – we are working closely with the Department for Education – advising them on character and feeding in our knowledge and experience to help them achieve our shared aim of embedding character education into all schools.

This February, we are on the cusp of piloting our first character measurement survey developed with the support of the Education Endowment Foundation. This survey will be a huge step towards helping us to track the development of character, and help us make good on our promise of supporting young people to reach their full potential. Exciting times for us and for character education as a whole! 

We will keep you updated on how we get on.

Alison Braybrooks
Director of Fundraising and Impact
London

Workshops, Workshops and More Worksops

Our Lady's year 7 At Zurich

It has been a busy start to 2016 here at ReachOut Manchester, with six projects attending workshops with our corporate partners and supporters. Workshops are always a great way for our young people to find out more about the world or work and what opportunities are out there for them once they leave education.

The year 9 Academy at The Barlow High School nipped into RBS in Spinningfields to try their hands at event management. The RBS volunteers and the mentees worked in teams to organize the best music festival possible, with great acts, food stalls and plenty of toilets! Adele? Taylor Swift? Ariana Grande? Our festivals had them all! The RBS volunteers were great and really encouraged the young people to think about the financials of the project, balancing out the impulse to book all the biggest and best acts without a care for the cost.

The Barlow Year 9 at RBS

Our year 7s at the St Paul's Academy were at BNY Mellon to brush up on their stock market knowledge. The budding stock traders grouped up into teams and set to work developing a profitable portfolio of stocks and commodities (with fake money unfortunately). Even after some turbulent economic events, our budding traders managed to turn a profit. Could there be a new Warren Buffett at St Paul's? As usual, the BNY volunteers were great at giving the young people a taste of the investment banking world.

St Paul's year 7 at BNY Mellon

Ever wondered what happens behind the scenes when you get your car insured? The year 8 Academy from Our Lady's high school went along to Ageas insurance to find out. The group was split into teams, each with its own Ageas insurance guru. The teams were approached by brokers with particular insurance problems and asked to come back with a quote. A fleet of 100 taxis? A Mercedes dealership? A haulage company? They insured them all! Thanks to the amazing Ageas volunteers for an informative workshop.

For our year 7 Academy at Our Lady's High School, insurance was the name of the game again. Our long time partners Zurich, gave an inspiring talk and ran a quiz to test the mentee's knowledge. A couple of the mentees were so impressed by the building they were asking about jobs.

Our Lady's year 7 at Zurich

High street bank Barclays got into the festival spirit in December (See what I did there?), and ran a workshop helping our young people to organize a festival. Our mentees from the year 7 Academy at Manchester Creative and media Academy put their thinking caps on to create the best festival they could. The Barclays volunteers did what they do best and kept the mentees minds on the budget.

MCMA year 7 Academy at Barclays

Just why is Nando's so tasty? Well you can ask our year ten Ace girls project at Our Lady's Catholic High School. The mentees got a step by step guide to the running of a Nando's restaurant, learning about customer service, preparing food, and restaurant management. To top it all off, the mentees got to sample the flame grilled chicken and sides that has made Nando's famous. Thanks to all the staff at The Fort Nando's on Cheetham Hill road.

Year 10 Ace Girls at The Fort Nando's 

Our young people had a blast at the workshops and came away having learned a lot about the world of work. ReachOut would like to extend a huge thank you to our corporate partners: RBS, Zurich, BNY Mellon, Nando's at The Fort, Ageas and Barclays. 

We can't wait for the next workshops!

Former ReachOut mentee shares a stage with Secretary of State for Education

Ali Aden, former ReachOut mentee and volunteer mentor, sat on a panel with Secretary of State for Education Nicky Morgan at last Thursday's Character Symposium at the Floreat School in Wandsworth. In his speech he spoke of the impact of his involvement with ReachOut whilst growing up in Hackney and the importance of character development in achieving his goals and being a good person.

Left to right: Ali on the panel with Danielle Brown, double gold medalist Paralympian, Nicky Morgan, Education Secretary, and Janet Hilary, Executive Principal of Floreat Education.

Good morning all, my name's Abdullahi Ali, though please call me Ali. I’m honoured to have been asked to come along today and tell you about my experiences growing up, my involvement with ReachOut and how that has helped develop my character and make me the person I am today. 

I live in east London in Hackney. I’m 20 years old, and study Politics and Economics at the University of Aston, but I was born in Somalia and came here as a refugee in 1998 with my family. I’m one of 7 kids, and the first in my family to go to university. Since moving to the UK we’ve always lived in a council house in Nightingale Estate, in Hackney.  We had some great times, and whilst you may have heard some bad things about life as a kid in Hackney, it isn't as bad as you probably think it is. 

Ali delivering his speech, and Nicky Morgan laughing in the reflection!

I went to The Petchey Academy aged 11, and in Year 8 I was referred to ReachOut with a few of my friends, because our teachers thought that mentoring, Maths & English support and character development would be good things for us.  In truth, as a group we weren't exactly the perfect students, but we were really excited by the chance to take part (especially to play football!) and so we gave it a punt. 

Back then, ReachOut was a very small charity, which made the programme very down to earth and intimate. We had regular assigned mentors who came to every session to help us with our homework, followed by football training.  

There was also a football club, ReachOut FC, which took us to football matches at weekends, and to be honest, at the start I was only there for the football! [*anecdote] But over time, I found myself going to the programme even if I knew there was no match on Sunday. I built a great relationship with my mentor who gave me an insight into his city job and how he got there, which left a lasting impression on me as a youngster. 

I still have such aspirations, and the impact that that had on me, led me to stay involved, both for the full 5 years on the project, and to continue as a volunteer at 16. Now, 9 years after meeting ReachOut and joining what I thought was just a football project, I've had the full experience; I've been a mentee, a volunteer mentor, and part-time employee at ReachOut.  

On tour with ReachOut FC in Madrid.

In 2010, 32 of us went to Spain on the trip of a lifetime, where we got stranded in Madrid during the Ash Crisis and came back to the UK after 9 days on HMS Albion with the Royal Marines!  

Coming home from Madrid on HMS Albion during the Ash Crisis.

Yep, we were the kids football team on the news if you heard us!  

Money Skills workshop at Barclays.

As well as the fun stuff, I’ve had countless interactions with working professionals in the form of events & workshops held at companies like Macquarie, UBS, Bloomberg and Barclays. Actually we had fun at those too! 

Barclays photo bomb!

In 2014 when I was 18, I volunteered during the summer leading a team of other young people from Hackney to run a summer project for 9 to 11 year old children. Myself and the other Team Leader had to train the other volunteers, who were 15 and 16 years old, and then manage them during the 2 week project which was tough. Our carefully laid plans went out the window on the first day when the uniforms didn’t arrive, half the team were late and the other half weren’t sticking to the timetables we’d provided. However we did the best with what we had and over the two weeks we got everything under control and I could tell everyone enjoyed the experience.  

I’ve developed a range of skills through my involvement, and more importantly it’s made me a better person.  Last summer I was one of the first two former mentees to work as a paid teacher on ReachOut’s Summer Project in Hackney, back at my old school, Petchey Academy. I was really proud to be a part of something I’d enjoyed and benefitted from for so long – and that both of my little brothers are still part of.  

For us kids growing up in Hackney, ReachOut was more than just a project we went to; it was a community. Looking back on my experience with ReachOut, I realise how important it was to have a project that offered more than just sports, but also making young kids open to the world around them, and giving them opportunities.  ReachOut had such a huge impact on my friends and I as kids, and speaking about past memories is a difficult task if you don't include ReachOut. 

I was invited here to talk about character, and I haven’t mentioned it much so far, so you’re probably thinking “stop beating around the bush!”.  

ReachOut has four character strengths they talk about, Self-Control, Staying Power, Fairness and Good Judgement. Now I’m a little older I can really see what it was all about.  My involvement with ReachOut was a huge character building exercise from start to finish, and even now standing here in front of you.  Seriously.

When the mentors were encouraging us to focus on our studies instead of messing about with our friends in a session, they were helping us develop Self-Control.  

By making us turn up every week, wind or rain, ReachOut helped us develop Staying Power, resilience – especially so when we took a beating on a cold Sunday morning in Essex!  

When we were encouraged to volunteer and think of others, they were helping us develop Fairness. 

And throughout all our interactions in the project, helping us reflect on good choices and bad, we were learning about Good Judgement.

ReachOut helped us develop our character and to learn what it meant to be a good person, to know what was right and wrong, to be a positive part of society.  Constant interaction with positive role models, mentors and doing positive things built us up, enabled us to not just study and focus on our schoolwork and exams, but to become more rounded people who made better choices and were able to reflect on our successes and failures.  

Growing up in Hackney, violence was part of the norm; whilst taking part in the ReachOut programme, I was used to hearing about a friend being stabbed or hurt. I personally believe this is due to one of two problems; 

the first, being their active decision to leave the programme, which had given them something to do after school and something to belong to, and instead be attracted to one of Hackney’s worst problems; gang culture. The difference whilst growing up between me and my friends who are now in gangs or in jail, is minimal - at best. We all had the same opportunities given to us from ReachOut and school and all came from similar backgrounds, which means that the disparity is largely down to character and choice. 

The positives however, that stopped me from going down the same route, were the relationship I had with my mentor (the more I attended, the closer we got and the more I found out about the real world) and that I was aware of the potential dangers of hanging around the wrong crowd thanks to his influence. 

Whilst ReachOut did develop my character over the years, there was no explicit emphasis on character development when I first joined, as there is now at the project.  

This is the second problem; not enough is being done to actively engage young people to develop the character stengths they need to be successful, and ultimately happy in life, as good character will allow you to make better choices.

I think three things are critical in helping young people develop character.  

1) Treat us as equals, and value our ideas and opinions. ReachOut always listened to us and allowed us to explore.  

2) It really is important to continue to offer opportunity to young people, to open our minds to the world around us and enable us to aspire.  

3) Finally, I think that we need to help young people actively think about character by talking about it, around them, with them, and making it real and relevant to their lives.  Only then will we really maximise the impact of work such as ReachOut’s.

To sum up, I can’t speak highly enough of my time with ReachOut – my friends and I benefitted hugely from our time with the staff and mentors, and I’m confident we’ll go on to good things in years to come.  Character is central to that development and future success, and lessons learnt with organisations like ReachOut can be applied to young people everywhere, and can help us build a better future.  

Following Ali's speech the Education Secretary set out her vision for character education and referenced the importance of mentoring programmes such as ReachOut in making a difference to the lives of young people. Click here to read her full speech.