News
dreamwall merger with Youth Options
As many of you will be aware, Youth Options and dreamwall have been working extremely closely over the last five months, both operationally and strategically. We are delighted to announce that there has been unanimous agreement from all trustees to pursue a formal merger as rapidly as possible.
The trustees believe that by coming together we will be able to provide enhanced support to children and young people enabling them to improve their life opportunities. Youth Options has many years experience delivering both open access and targeted support programmes. This combined with dreamwall’s extensive experience working with looked after children and young people will ensure an extended offer of services in a variety of settings.
The staff teams from both organisations will now work as one. Ian Gosling, the Service Manager of dreamwall, will report directly to Debbie Burns (Deputy CEO Youth Options). The two boards of trustees will also now meet and act as one wherever practical, with a view to consummating the legal merger by 31st March 2011.
Click on the following link to find out more about Youth Options
dreamwall skydive ahhhh
On the 12th September 2010 part of the dreamwalll team completed a skydive for our young people. Alex Cuppleditch, Brenton Watson, Nancy Bull, Jess Pearson, Robyn Parker and Kelly John all took part in a tandem jump out of a plane from 12,000ft of which 5,000 was free falling.
To date this event has raised £1,800 which will all go directly towards our work with young people. If you would like to make a donation please go to the link below and search for one of the dare devils staff that have taken on the challenge Donate to dreamwall (make sure you type in surnames to ensure you are sponsoring the correct person)
Brenton has been working very hard to raise money for the sky dive. Why not click here for further information about Brenton and his journey towards completing this task.
The New Financial Year Success
The new financial year has started extremely well for dreamwall with the team securing contracts with
- Southampton
- Hampshire
- Hampshire Post Adoption
- Carers First
- Preventing Youth Offending in Portsmouth (PYOP)
- Catford High School
- Family Inclusion Project (FIP)
C4EO: Centre for Excellence and Outcomes in Children's and Young Peoples Services
C4EO is a DCSF sponsored consortium that aims to create a central hub of knowledge that provides local, regional and national evidence of what works when it comes to facilitating the growth of children and young people.
dreamwall has recently been successful with their application to C4EO and thus have again been assured of the positive contribution made towards the lives of the young people that we work with. dreamwall's account is situated under the subheading 'Vulnerable (Looked After Children)'. It can be found by following the link below.
The start of an exciting journey: Social Pedagogy Style
On November the 27th 2009, the Executive Founder of dreamwall Brett Rennolds attended a networking event set up by the organization ThemPra. The aim of this event was to bring people from all over the country together to understand social pedagogy, share experiences and opinions and work together to help the UK turn a corner in the way in it approaches young people. This was the first event of its kind and can only be described as an unprecedented success, with Brett commenting
" One of the best events I have ever attended. The European pedagogues really understood what dreamwall was about... "
So the question is, just what exactly is Social Pedagogy?
It has been described by an early German pedagogue as
" the Social aspects of education and the educational aspects of social life constitute this science (Social Pedagogy)"
(Paul Natorp 1904)
In short to the best of my understanding, Social Pedagogy is concept implemented extremely successfully in European and Scandinavian countries. It emphasizes that human relationships should be based on equality and openness not on supervision and hierarchy and argues that education is a social function as well as being for academic purpose. A social pedagogue (an individual working in a social pedagogy way) will address the whole of a young person, not just specific characteristics, occupy the same living space and become a secure adult base in the young persons life. There is far more to it than this, if you'd like to find out more,
this link is very informative.
Matt@dreamwall.org.uk