2008
Why I Started Dreamcatchers
08/10/08 21:20
I founded Dreamcatchers for two
reasons; firstly I felt I was not able to fulfill my potential
where I was working. Operating consistently within my comfort zone
was not something I was prepared to do any longer; I felt
demotivated and had lost the passion that originally compelled me
to work with young people. I wanted to be stretched and challenged,
so I left my cushy job and started Dreamcatchers.
The second and the fundamentally most important reason I undertook this amazing journey was that despite effortlessly meeting our governmentally imposed targets and collecting accolades and praise from ofsted and alike, I knew deep down that we were still not satisfactorily meeting the needs of the young people we served. This consistently jarred my values.
I wanted to make a difference, I wanted to help young people create vivid positive representations of their future and then support them to catch their dreams, not just teach them what society thinks they need to know but gift them a toolbox full of personal resources and transferable skills that they could use immediately to make improvements their lives and continue to use for the rest of lives to fulfill their potential and never be held back by fear or feelings of self doubt.
I was scared, I would have no money, no job but the energy I felt when I received the incorporation certificate for Dreamcatchers reignited my passion and added fuel to my motivational fire. I knew the principles I wanted to operate Dreamcatchers by (A Needs Led & Solution Focussed Approach), I knew I wanted remain flexible to meet the needs of individual young people as well as young people collectively, and I didn’t know how specifically to make this happen so I sat at my computer and wrote a document called “Our Dream”.
It started by saying
“Everyone in this world of ours has a dream, some people call them goals or targets to others they’re ambitions, but to us they are all dreams.
We see a dream as an idealism of how we would like to live our lives, what we want to achieve and the positive impact we can have on others.
So many people give up their dreams by denying they have the potential and convincing themselves that they are too busy, they can’t afford what it will cost in time and effort or by deluding themselves that they are not worthy of the accolades success will bring. We believe that everybody has the ability to reach their potential and whether it is to achieve more at school, get a great job, succeed in sport or anything thing else they could dream of doing, being, seeing or achieving we can help young people reach their potential and follow your dreams.
Due to the current fast-moving, rapidly expanding hi-tech age we live in, the youth of today have distanced themselves from the essence of what makes life so special, inspirational and exciting. Games consoles and digital television have replaced their natural instincts of adventure and exploration. This has resulted in a generation of young people suffering from social isolation and exclusion and having a negative self-image so therefore little or no aspirations for their own let alone their community’s future.
As a result of this, young people’s aspirations and ambitions cannot be developed or harnessed as they feel they can no longer follow their dreams and achieve true empowerment and success as they live in an environment where a lack of hope, expectation and enthusiasm about their future rules their life.
Dreamcatchers aims to challenge these negative assumptions by leading individuals and communities towards a brighter more promising future, one of inspiration and motivation where a community can achieve true and measurable progression and become sustainable - continuing its growth into the lives of the future generations.
We believe everyone should be given the opportunity and the support they need to reach their potential, too many of us give up too easily, and it is the acceptance of low aspirations and ambition that we want to change.”
This document changed my life. I had now created an organisation whose culture and values matched my own and would become the vehicle to fulfill my potential whilst assisting young people to the very same thing for themselves.
July 13th 2005 Dreamcatchers was born, “Our Dream” became the catalyst, all I needed to do now was to find some other people who shared my dream and were prepared to give their energy and passion to the cause.
It took me until December 2006 to cement Dreamcatchers foundations (A needs led – solution focused approach).
We initially focussed on service delivery, we wanted to prove our methods and ideas would work which they undoubtedly did. The cost however was that we neglected the basics of organisational growth, we got stuck in the moment, the here and now and neglected to plan for the future.
We knew where we wanted to go but had no map, no directions so around the summer of 2006 I took some time out to put some coherent plans together with tangible and measurable objectives and targets.
It was easy to do, we didn’t waste time sitting around asking each other what the young people needed, we just asked them! Who knows a young person’s needs better than a young person?
To make us more attractive to funders and partners I mapped our objectives against a range of governmental policies and recommendations, this act propelled us to become the amazing organisation we knew we could be. I could always hit targets before I started Dreamcatchers and I now had sufficient reference experiences to help me prove I could also meet the needs of individual young people, the step that cemented our foundations was documenting and proving how we could do both.
This enabled our newly formed board of trustees to apply for sufficient funding to make me a full time employee from January 1st 2007.
Although it was a difficult step to trust a group of people to take control of my dreams and the governance of the organisation I created, I knew it was the only way we could move it forward and make Dreamcatchers a professional and sustainable organisation. So I became an employee! (eeeeeeeeeeeeeekkkk)
We have many successes over the last three years and a number of challenges, on the whole our achievements far outweigh any difficulties we have worked through.
Now in 2008 its time for a change, Dreamcatchers works because I have always held a positive representation of every young person I have worked with, I believe they already have all the inner resources they will ever need, they just don't know how to access them yet, they haven't found where they are kept.
I built the charity on the foundations of a needs led - solution focussed approach, in short we solely base our work on the needs of the young people we serve and focus our and their attention on a bigger, brighter and more positive future.
When you build a house on solid foundations you build a safe and solid structure, but you will never see those foundations again, they may well provide the underpinning of the building but what holds the roof up is the actual structure you build once the foundations are set.
Dreamcatchers continues to go from strength based on these solid foundations, and I continue to be energised when I witness the positive shock waves we create.
I have recently come to the conclusion that I can only have a limited amount of impact, I will be limited by the capacity to continually grow Dreamcatchers whilst staying within our charitable objectives and meeting the needs of the client groups I established Dreamcatchers to serve.
I have made the decision and commitment to shift my personal focus from directly supporting young people to supporting others to support young people.
The charity will of course maintain its fantastic work, and I believe my energy is best spent in supporting the people who want to better meet the needs of the young people they serve.
By offering them the training and coaching they need to make this happen Dreamcatchers impact will increase ten fold as every person we work with will have the confidence and skills to emulate what I have achieved.... now that's the legacy I want to leave!!
Dreamcatchers - Inspiring & Enabling Young People!!!
Andy
Read More...
The second and the fundamentally most important reason I undertook this amazing journey was that despite effortlessly meeting our governmentally imposed targets and collecting accolades and praise from ofsted and alike, I knew deep down that we were still not satisfactorily meeting the needs of the young people we served. This consistently jarred my values.
I wanted to make a difference, I wanted to help young people create vivid positive representations of their future and then support them to catch their dreams, not just teach them what society thinks they need to know but gift them a toolbox full of personal resources and transferable skills that they could use immediately to make improvements their lives and continue to use for the rest of lives to fulfill their potential and never be held back by fear or feelings of self doubt.
I was scared, I would have no money, no job but the energy I felt when I received the incorporation certificate for Dreamcatchers reignited my passion and added fuel to my motivational fire. I knew the principles I wanted to operate Dreamcatchers by (A Needs Led & Solution Focussed Approach), I knew I wanted remain flexible to meet the needs of individual young people as well as young people collectively, and I didn’t know how specifically to make this happen so I sat at my computer and wrote a document called “Our Dream”.
It started by saying
“Everyone in this world of ours has a dream, some people call them goals or targets to others they’re ambitions, but to us they are all dreams.
We see a dream as an idealism of how we would like to live our lives, what we want to achieve and the positive impact we can have on others.
So many people give up their dreams by denying they have the potential and convincing themselves that they are too busy, they can’t afford what it will cost in time and effort or by deluding themselves that they are not worthy of the accolades success will bring. We believe that everybody has the ability to reach their potential and whether it is to achieve more at school, get a great job, succeed in sport or anything thing else they could dream of doing, being, seeing or achieving we can help young people reach their potential and follow your dreams.
Due to the current fast-moving, rapidly expanding hi-tech age we live in, the youth of today have distanced themselves from the essence of what makes life so special, inspirational and exciting. Games consoles and digital television have replaced their natural instincts of adventure and exploration. This has resulted in a generation of young people suffering from social isolation and exclusion and having a negative self-image so therefore little or no aspirations for their own let alone their community’s future.
As a result of this, young people’s aspirations and ambitions cannot be developed or harnessed as they feel they can no longer follow their dreams and achieve true empowerment and success as they live in an environment where a lack of hope, expectation and enthusiasm about their future rules their life.
Dreamcatchers aims to challenge these negative assumptions by leading individuals and communities towards a brighter more promising future, one of inspiration and motivation where a community can achieve true and measurable progression and become sustainable - continuing its growth into the lives of the future generations.
We believe everyone should be given the opportunity and the support they need to reach their potential, too many of us give up too easily, and it is the acceptance of low aspirations and ambition that we want to change.”
This document changed my life. I had now created an organisation whose culture and values matched my own and would become the vehicle to fulfill my potential whilst assisting young people to the very same thing for themselves.
July 13th 2005 Dreamcatchers was born, “Our Dream” became the catalyst, all I needed to do now was to find some other people who shared my dream and were prepared to give their energy and passion to the cause.
It took me until December 2006 to cement Dreamcatchers foundations (A needs led – solution focused approach).
We initially focussed on service delivery, we wanted to prove our methods and ideas would work which they undoubtedly did. The cost however was that we neglected the basics of organisational growth, we got stuck in the moment, the here and now and neglected to plan for the future.
We knew where we wanted to go but had no map, no directions so around the summer of 2006 I took some time out to put some coherent plans together with tangible and measurable objectives and targets.
It was easy to do, we didn’t waste time sitting around asking each other what the young people needed, we just asked them! Who knows a young person’s needs better than a young person?
To make us more attractive to funders and partners I mapped our objectives against a range of governmental policies and recommendations, this act propelled us to become the amazing organisation we knew we could be. I could always hit targets before I started Dreamcatchers and I now had sufficient reference experiences to help me prove I could also meet the needs of individual young people, the step that cemented our foundations was documenting and proving how we could do both.
This enabled our newly formed board of trustees to apply for sufficient funding to make me a full time employee from January 1st 2007.
Although it was a difficult step to trust a group of people to take control of my dreams and the governance of the organisation I created, I knew it was the only way we could move it forward and make Dreamcatchers a professional and sustainable organisation. So I became an employee! (eeeeeeeeeeeeeekkkk)
We have many successes over the last three years and a number of challenges, on the whole our achievements far outweigh any difficulties we have worked through.
Now in 2008 its time for a change, Dreamcatchers works because I have always held a positive representation of every young person I have worked with, I believe they already have all the inner resources they will ever need, they just don't know how to access them yet, they haven't found where they are kept.
I built the charity on the foundations of a needs led - solution focussed approach, in short we solely base our work on the needs of the young people we serve and focus our and their attention on a bigger, brighter and more positive future.
When you build a house on solid foundations you build a safe and solid structure, but you will never see those foundations again, they may well provide the underpinning of the building but what holds the roof up is the actual structure you build once the foundations are set.
Dreamcatchers continues to go from strength based on these solid foundations, and I continue to be energised when I witness the positive shock waves we create.
I have recently come to the conclusion that I can only have a limited amount of impact, I will be limited by the capacity to continually grow Dreamcatchers whilst staying within our charitable objectives and meeting the needs of the client groups I established Dreamcatchers to serve.
I have made the decision and commitment to shift my personal focus from directly supporting young people to supporting others to support young people.
The charity will of course maintain its fantastic work, and I believe my energy is best spent in supporting the people who want to better meet the needs of the young people they serve.
By offering them the training and coaching they need to make this happen Dreamcatchers impact will increase ten fold as every person we work with will have the confidence and skills to emulate what I have achieved.... now that's the legacy I want to leave!!
Dreamcatchers - Inspiring & Enabling Young People!!!
Andy
Read More...
22/07/08 12:29
Developing a Coaching
Practice
Factors to consider
¬ Contact details for practice – how will people get in touch
¬ Create brand identity - Business Cards, Brochure and Portfolio / Website
¬ Limited Company or Self Employed
¬ Bank Accounts – business or trading as account
¬ Create Terms and Conditions and Contracts
¬ Set up invoicing procedures – be ready for business clients
¬ Create forms needed for pre session, during and after
¬ Clear fee structure (know it!)
Additional consideration when working with Young People
¬ Consent Forms
¬ Competency to consent form and procedures
¬ Enhanced CRB Clearance
¬ Clear fee structure (know it! – does it differ from adult structure)
¬ Child protection statement, procedure and policy
¬ Supervision statement
¬ YP centred forms, brochures and website
¬ How will you coach – telephone, in person, email, MSN etc
Getting Clients & Contacts
¬ Leverage friends, relations, occupations, organisations, geographical areas, communities of practice / interest. Give everyone a few business cards to keep in their wallet, bag, car and office…. Just in case. Third party referrals and word of mouth are very effective (and free) ways of advertising your business.
¬ Write articles, success stories and case studies, send them to magazines and post on a blog.
¬ Speak! Wherever you can to whoever you can, speeches give you a captive and interested audience
¬ Write proposals and tenders for contracts
¬ Pro bono work, free gifts, taster days
¬ Get coached! What better way to grow your business than to be coached yourself? As well as a fantastic opportunity to gain some high quality coaching you gain valuable experience
¬ Identify and target clients – with training opportunities, speak to existing contacts and clients. Email Newsletters and Blogs are perfect for this, you can combine this with pro bono or reduced cost taster days to build credibility and experience
¬ Identify match funders and sponsors – local businesses will often be keen to support work with young people and families. Leisure centres, gyms and health clubs will often be interested in having a resident coach, they will often offer a subsidy on a room in return for staff coaching. Having the support of a corporate body is fantastic for gaining credibility.
Factors to consider
¬ Contact details for practice – how will people get in touch
¬ Create brand identity - Business Cards, Brochure and Portfolio / Website
¬ Limited Company or Self Employed
¬ Bank Accounts – business or trading as account
¬ Create Terms and Conditions and Contracts
¬ Set up invoicing procedures – be ready for business clients
¬ Create forms needed for pre session, during and after
¬ Clear fee structure (know it!)
Additional consideration when working with Young People
¬ Consent Forms
¬ Competency to consent form and procedures
¬ Enhanced CRB Clearance
¬ Clear fee structure (know it! – does it differ from adult structure)
¬ Child protection statement, procedure and policy
¬ Supervision statement
¬ YP centred forms, brochures and website
¬ How will you coach – telephone, in person, email, MSN etc
Getting Clients & Contacts
¬ Leverage friends, relations, occupations, organisations, geographical areas, communities of practice / interest. Give everyone a few business cards to keep in their wallet, bag, car and office…. Just in case. Third party referrals and word of mouth are very effective (and free) ways of advertising your business.
¬ Write articles, success stories and case studies, send them to magazines and post on a blog.
¬ Speak! Wherever you can to whoever you can, speeches give you a captive and interested audience
¬ Write proposals and tenders for contracts
¬ Pro bono work, free gifts, taster days
¬ Get coached! What better way to grow your business than to be coached yourself? As well as a fantastic opportunity to gain some high quality coaching you gain valuable experience
¬ Identify and target clients – with training opportunities, speak to existing contacts and clients. Email Newsletters and Blogs are perfect for this, you can combine this with pro bono or reduced cost taster days to build credibility and experience
¬ Identify match funders and sponsors – local businesses will often be keen to support work with young people and families. Leisure centres, gyms and health clubs will often be interested in having a resident coach, they will often offer a subsidy on a room in return for staff coaching. Having the support of a corporate body is fantastic for gaining credibility.
10/06/08 11:25
Dreamcatchers offers a "Needs Led -
Solution Focused" youth provision, we work in three main
areas
1. Community Based Youth Projects
2. A Youth Coaching Service
3. Accredited Personal Development Programmes (Including Residential work)
I thought it would be a good idea to explain exactly what we mean by the phrase "Needs led - Solution Focussed".
Needs Led:
All of our work is based on the needs of the young people, we never undertake a piece of work that we just want to do, we always plan and deliver our projects and services based on the needs we have identified from our client group.
The benefits of a Needs Led approach are:
It helps young people and their parents (and us as workers) understand what work must be done and what needs to change in order to meet young peoples needs
It creates an environment of fairness and equality of access and transparency
It is useful in supporting the family as a system rather than the young person is isolation
It is useful in service planning as well as individual work
Solution Focused:
Our work focuses on what young people want to achieve in their lives rather than on the problem(s) that made them seek our help. We do not focus on their past, we focus on their present and future. We invite the young people to create a vision of their ideal future (their Dream Future) and coach them to create the goals that will assist them to make it a reality, whether this is by small adjustments or huge changes it is a powerful and life changing experience for Young People.
We believe change and development are a constant process. By helping young people identify the positive things that they want to achieve and also encouraging them focus on the things that are currently working well that they want to continue doing, we support young people to construct a exciting and compelling representation of their “Dream future”.
We then support Young People to identify times in their current life that are closer to their Dream Future, and discover what is different on these occasions. By bringing these small successes to their awareness, and helping them to repeat these successful things they do when the problem is not there or less severe, we enable young people move towards their Dream Future and fulfil their potential
1. Community Based Youth Projects
2. A Youth Coaching Service
3. Accredited Personal Development Programmes (Including Residential work)
I thought it would be a good idea to explain exactly what we mean by the phrase "Needs led - Solution Focussed".
Needs Led:
All of our work is based on the needs of the young people, we never undertake a piece of work that we just want to do, we always plan and deliver our projects and services based on the needs we have identified from our client group.
The benefits of a Needs Led approach are:
It helps young people and their parents (and us as workers) understand what work must be done and what needs to change in order to meet young peoples needs
It creates an environment of fairness and equality of access and transparency
It is useful in supporting the family as a system rather than the young person is isolation
It is useful in service planning as well as individual work
Solution Focused:
Our work focuses on what young people want to achieve in their lives rather than on the problem(s) that made them seek our help. We do not focus on their past, we focus on their present and future. We invite the young people to create a vision of their ideal future (their Dream Future) and coach them to create the goals that will assist them to make it a reality, whether this is by small adjustments or huge changes it is a powerful and life changing experience for Young People.
We believe change and development are a constant process. By helping young people identify the positive things that they want to achieve and also encouraging them focus on the things that are currently working well that they want to continue doing, we support young people to construct a exciting and compelling representation of their “Dream future”.
We then support Young People to identify times in their current life that are closer to their Dream Future, and discover what is different on these occasions. By bringing these small successes to their awareness, and helping them to repeat these successful things they do when the problem is not there or less severe, we enable young people move towards their Dream Future and fulfil their potential
23/05/08 13:23
The more work I do with outside
agencies the more I get asked to reduce anti social behaviour in
the communities with whom I work.
It recently occurred to me that if I focus on anti social behaviour what will I get........ anti social behaviour, (as we all know we get what we focus on).
The 'anti social behaviour' young people display is the symptom of an underlying problem and by just diverting their time away from their peers will not solve the issues the young person is harbouring. Sooner or later that behaviour will re-emerge regardless of how many trips we take them on or how often we discuss the problem, why would you want to sit and talk about your problems all day.... that would be awful.
By focusing their minds on positive solutions based on their dreams which they have established, the long term primary benefit will be that the young people will develop emotionally and socially and choose to pursue their goals, the secondary benefit would of-course be a reduction in anti social behaviour, fantastic I hear you all shout!!
Focusing on perceived societal problems just doesn't work, if anti social is the problem surely PRO SOCIAL behaviour is the solution, and the only way young people will exhibit pro social behaviour is if we as adults model those skills to them and give a safe place to develop the personal and societal skills they to function effectively in an adult environment.
Encouraging young people to stay at home or to not gather in groups does not develop them socially, human beings are social creatures so by isolating them with dispersal orders is in effect encouraging them to be anti social.
Imagine the future, the young people all stay at home each night rather than meeting up in groups (which is social behaviour by the way!), when they enter 'the real world' as people often refer it adulthood (??) they will be what??? ANTI SOCIAL, they will not have the emotional and social skills they need to function at work, in society and just imagine what their children will be like!!!
I encourage and invite all young people to come together in groups and socialise, this is why I have focused Dreamcatchers work upon meeting the needs of individual and collective groups of young people in a safe, constructive and ultimately developmental environment where they can express themselves in a more positive way by learning and demonstrating PRO SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR.
The human brain notices and is interested in differences not sameness, by accepting or ignoring what you don't want (problems) we get used to them and it becomes habitual and so never changes. How many communities live in the spiral of isolation and disadvantge... and have you ever wondered how no matter what regeneration agencies do things never get better? Traditional community development and regeneration concentrates on digging into problems, and figuring out where things went wrong, what needs fixing..... How many millions on consultants??
Nobody seems to ask, "what is great about this community" or "what are these young people doing really well? I can imagine these committees saying "lets just build them a community centre and hope for the best"
At Dreamcatchers we are always looking underneath the surface of presented problems and reframing them so we can focus our minds on establishing what is already amazing, encouraging young people to do more of that and also coaching them to establish exactly what they want to achieve (after all it is their life) and assisting them to set amazing, exciting and attractive goals.
My point in all this!! don't focus on what you don't want, focus on what you DO want and what ever the issue was will be reframed into something positive you want instead, then where is the problem?? It's gone!
It recently occurred to me that if I focus on anti social behaviour what will I get........ anti social behaviour, (as we all know we get what we focus on).
The 'anti social behaviour' young people display is the symptom of an underlying problem and by just diverting their time away from their peers will not solve the issues the young person is harbouring. Sooner or later that behaviour will re-emerge regardless of how many trips we take them on or how often we discuss the problem, why would you want to sit and talk about your problems all day.... that would be awful.
By focusing their minds on positive solutions based on their dreams which they have established, the long term primary benefit will be that the young people will develop emotionally and socially and choose to pursue their goals, the secondary benefit would of-course be a reduction in anti social behaviour, fantastic I hear you all shout!!
Focusing on perceived societal problems just doesn't work, if anti social is the problem surely PRO SOCIAL behaviour is the solution, and the only way young people will exhibit pro social behaviour is if we as adults model those skills to them and give a safe place to develop the personal and societal skills they to function effectively in an adult environment.
Encouraging young people to stay at home or to not gather in groups does not develop them socially, human beings are social creatures so by isolating them with dispersal orders is in effect encouraging them to be anti social.
Imagine the future, the young people all stay at home each night rather than meeting up in groups (which is social behaviour by the way!), when they enter 'the real world' as people often refer it adulthood (??) they will be what??? ANTI SOCIAL, they will not have the emotional and social skills they need to function at work, in society and just imagine what their children will be like!!!
I encourage and invite all young people to come together in groups and socialise, this is why I have focused Dreamcatchers work upon meeting the needs of individual and collective groups of young people in a safe, constructive and ultimately developmental environment where they can express themselves in a more positive way by learning and demonstrating PRO SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR.
The human brain notices and is interested in differences not sameness, by accepting or ignoring what you don't want (problems) we get used to them and it becomes habitual and so never changes. How many communities live in the spiral of isolation and disadvantge... and have you ever wondered how no matter what regeneration agencies do things never get better? Traditional community development and regeneration concentrates on digging into problems, and figuring out where things went wrong, what needs fixing..... How many millions on consultants??
Nobody seems to ask, "what is great about this community" or "what are these young people doing really well? I can imagine these committees saying "lets just build them a community centre and hope for the best"
At Dreamcatchers we are always looking underneath the surface of presented problems and reframing them so we can focus our minds on establishing what is already amazing, encouraging young people to do more of that and also coaching them to establish exactly what they want to achieve (after all it is their life) and assisting them to set amazing, exciting and attractive goals.
My point in all this!! don't focus on what you don't want, focus on what you DO want and what ever the issue was will be reframed into something positive you want instead, then where is the problem?? It's gone!
23/05/08 13:20
Young people should be more involved in
their own education.
They should be offered the time and
opportunities to experiment, explore and experience in a safe and
supportive environment.
If a young person has an idea of what they want to do, is it fair that we make them wait until they are 16 before we start to support them to make this happen?
We as educators should embrace and inspire young people's ambition at an embryonic stage and by nurturing their aspirations by assisting them to not just reach their potential but to surpass it.
We should encourage them to chase their dreams from the very first day they dare to dream them. Society judges young people at such an early age to how successful they will or can be, could any of us honestly say given second chance you wouldn't have like to find your path a little earlier?
Education should equip young people with the tools they need to catch their dreams, not demoralise them or stifle their talents. I often wonder if young people were taught the emotional skills they need to function effectively in the real world there wouldn't be as many people on NHS waiting lists for counsellors, anti depressants and substance dependancy.
Dreamcatchers is actively challenging ineffective and none relevant education, we are working hard to develop alternative programmes that enable young people to work towards the career that they want and learning the skills they need to do it well.
Hopefully the new specialist diplomas will start the ball rolling in terms of educational reform, but until then, we will keep working on a need led - solution focussed basis and developing our team to do the very best job we can.
If a young person has an idea of what they want to do, is it fair that we make them wait until they are 16 before we start to support them to make this happen?
We as educators should embrace and inspire young people's ambition at an embryonic stage and by nurturing their aspirations by assisting them to not just reach their potential but to surpass it.
We should encourage them to chase their dreams from the very first day they dare to dream them. Society judges young people at such an early age to how successful they will or can be, could any of us honestly say given second chance you wouldn't have like to find your path a little earlier?
Education should equip young people with the tools they need to catch their dreams, not demoralise them or stifle their talents. I often wonder if young people were taught the emotional skills they need to function effectively in the real world there wouldn't be as many people on NHS waiting lists for counsellors, anti depressants and substance dependancy.
Dreamcatchers is actively challenging ineffective and none relevant education, we are working hard to develop alternative programmes that enable young people to work towards the career that they want and learning the skills they need to do it well.
Hopefully the new specialist diplomas will start the ball rolling in terms of educational reform, but until then, we will keep working on a need led - solution focussed basis and developing our team to do the very best job we can.
