boost
Youth Skills & Families
The Youth Skills team was set up (initially by One Haverhill) in 2013 with the belief that the young people of Haverhill deserve the best possible opportunities for training and reaching their full potential. The team are dedicated to empowering young people to live happier and healthier lives.
Boost
What is Boost?
Boost, launched by Haverhill Town Council in April 2024, is an award-winning project designed to prevent young people aged 13-16 from turning to crime, truancy from school and to build confidence to improve the mental health and wellbeing of those we help. The project is funded by the serious crime fund awarded by the Police and Crime Commissioner for Suffolk.
Who are we?
The boost project is managed by the Youth Skills department of Haverhill Town Council, which is headed by Karen Chapple, Youth Skills Manager. She is supported by two Youth Skills Advisors, Callum and Rebekah. The team have years of valuable public service experience and are active in the community with the other projects provided by the Youth Skills department.
How does Boost work?
- Confidence building
- Become an active member of the community
- Skills work
- Combat isolation
- Improve mental health
- Sense of belonging
- A safe place to talk
- Education
- Mentoring
- Counselling
- Fun activities that could lead to hobbies
Read the Boost team's latest newsletter
Our latest newsletter is out. Click here to find out more.
Support Groups
This group is a weekly peer support group which has the focus of supporting each other through the various struggles with gender identity and the process of transitioning.
The group is currently recruiting new members. During the sessions, the members are designing their own support resources so they can reach out to the community and hopefully help those needing this type of support. The group recently contacted other Suffolk groups and got a guest speaker into their sessions to give more advice.
The Adult Signpost group is a free support provision in Haverhill for those who may have mental health or other wellbeing difficulties. This group meets weekly partaking in various activities while also having discussions about confidence building and wellbeing stabilisation.
Recently the Adult Signpost group painted mugs with Naomi from ‘The Pottery Shed’. Other Activities have included board games and mashed games, like card quizzes. All activities are based around confidence building and wellbeing.
A new Junior Signpost group was formed for the new school year.
Junior Signpost is a free after-school support group for those who are experiencing low mood, low confidence, anxiety, depression, etc.
The new group has regularly 8 – 10 students who attend the weekly sessions. The young people at junior signpost have completed activities such as wall climbing, roller-skating, making galaxy jars and costume making.
Each member of the jobs club meets one of the team on a weekly basis.
During this session, the team works on CV building, how to write a cover letter, interview skills, building workplace confidence and helping to apply to jobs in their area of interest.
Every individual young person that comes to see the team is at different stages of their job-seeking journey and the team have had various successes at all these stages. Some of the young people have begun volunteering at REACH and Boomerang food bank, some jumped back into education; one individual is beginning their nursing journey at West Suffolk College, another is continuing a career in computer science at University of East Anglia. Further success has been made by an individual securing a job in our local Iceland. Three of the young people have secured festive roles for this season.
Approximately 25 young people come on a weekly basis to the Wellbeing Hub. The young people range from year 7 to 11 and come from various schools in Haverhill. The activities range from PS5, football, crafts and Pool with regular different outsourced activities.
At this club, the young people gain information regarding wellbeing and keeping their mental health positive. Staff regularly have discussions with the young people allowing them to open up about anything they want to talk about if they wish.
The Wellbeing hub have made Halloween themed treats, designed their own t-shirts, completed rope-based team exercises and also helped the town council by making props for the Haverhill Halloween Trail.
The Parent and Toddler group is based at The Zone and welcomes approx. 7 parents and their toddlers. The group is made up of parents under the age of 25 who are feeling isolated, lonely, anxious, depressed or experiencing low mood symptoms.
The group has become very friendly, with some of the parents becoming friends out with the group. Many from the group have since arranged to walk together to get to The Zone. Many of the conversations are peer led, giving constant updated advice on parenting, schooling and overall care for their little ones and themselves.
Callum and Rebekah have led chats regarding how caring for the parents mental health will affect the children’s mental health.
With guest speakers from Alumna giving the parents a talk on healthy relationships, trips to the Abbey croft leisure for the children and food hampers given to the parents as a helping hand, the group is extremely positive and open to talk about anything and everything.
The Walk and Talk group welcomes 16 to 25s for a friendly stroll in various places throughout Haverhill and take part in mindfulness activities.
The first wander was a walk around Haverhill and ultimately ended up in the new McDonald’s for a spot of lunch. The intention of this particular walk was to try and get the group to get to know each other without the pressure of one-on-one chats.
Dual processing theory explains that by completing another activity, i.e. walking / eating will take the pressure off of the other activity taking place, i.e. talking to others.
The group’s following strolls have been in and around East Town Park. With guided conversations about relationships, isolation and how to use nature to unwind and everyone’s different techniques to use nature to calm ourselves in difficult situations. With a couple of rounds of “Pooh sticks” from the bridge in East Town Park, conversations were flowing and it was a very nice session.
At the start of any referral the client’s case is passed over to one of the team who will be responsible for managing the case, as well as mentoring the client and monitoring their progress.
The mentoring sessions are between the client and their mentor once a month where they will discuss progress at school, any ongoing issues that they need assistance with and how their organised activities have been going.
The Boost project funds young clients to do an activity of their choice in the community, whether it be sport such as golf or football, or mindfulness and yoga sessions with a qualified instructor.
This also provides opportunities for the clients to have another person to confide in, and the instructor can constructively feed back about how the client has been progressing outside the view of the mentor.
The team actively encourages participation at school and aims to maximise attendance for those who are truant or are not confident enough to attend school full time.
By having strong connection with the local schools, the team can find a solution that will benefit the client. Whether that be through a staggered plan of reintroduction or through searching for alternative education providers.
The Boost project also offers counselling for clients who may be struggling with their mental health. This also presents solutions for managing their emotions during school hours when they feel like the environment is overwhelming and/or brings on anxiety or stress. This is provided by a professional counsellor from an external company.
Workshops are hosted monthly on a variety of topics to raise awareness and encourage positive behaviour. These include sessions on controlling anger, the regulation of emotions in school and positive relationships.
The Team
The Youth Skills and Family Manager, Karen Chapple, is employed by HTC to work with young people and families by building positive relationships with local businesses and organisations to enable a range of differing needs and ensure aspirations are met.
Karen currently has the support of two Youth Skills and Families Advisors. The team also consists of four qualified Youth Workers.
The Youth Skills Programme aims to:
- Link businesses and young people to provide mutual benefits in terms of opportunities for jobs, apprenticeships, and work experience.
- Successfully win grants to enable bespoke work to be carried out to match our community/clients’ needs. For example, we currently have many clients with low mood and consequently we provide three signpost projects to meet their specific issues and requirements. We have run a successful well-being hub for 2 years with attendance numbers over 30 most weeks.
- Offer 1-2-1 mentoring support to encourage young people to reach their full potential.
- Workshops and guidance on CV writing, interview techniques, and job applications.
- Provide a programme of local events to offer inspiration, experience, advice and guidance.
- Provide local training opportunities by working closely with both young people and businesses, helping to tackle skills gaps at both the business and individual level.
- Work with schools and targeted groups of students to ensure they are informed and are aware of their choices.
Previous funding providers
- Assura Health
- The National Lottery
- Haverhill Town Council
- Suffolk County Council
- West Suffolk Council
- Co-op Local Community Fund
- Police Crime Commission
The success of the project
Since April 2013 to date we have signed up and offered support to over 2,000 young people. Of this number, 65 percent have moved on positively, many on to employment, education, or training.
The success of the project is largely attributed to the partnership-working ethos. Good relationships have been formed with the local community, schools, further education colleges, training providers, services, businesses, and our young clients. Together we have proved we are stronger and better equipped to deal with differing needs and offer the best all round support package.
Mission Statement- “The right support at the right time can be life changing”.
Reviews and Feedback
A review left by a parent regarding her son attending Adult Signpost: “X spent literally months on end isolating himself from the outside world. His self esteem and self confidence was at it’s lowest.. he looked lost and sad most days, which was having a huge impact on his life. Rebekah listened to him and worked out a way to work with him. She has been involved with helping X to wanting to participate in the weekly meet ups at the Haverhill Arts Centre with Rebekah and the other students. He is wanting to go weekly without me pushing him! X is definitely happier, calmer and is much more sociable, going outdoors.”
A review left by a parent regarding the Wellbeing Hub: “Just to say thank you so much for running this group. X has grown in confidence and his well-being has improved a lot over the last year …He really loves going to the group and it has come to be part of his weekly routine. This has supported us as a family and allowed him to mix with others his age which is something he finds difficult due to having autism. … He really looks forward to going every week to the hub at The Zone.”