Training Update

22 March 2021

Lots of great news on the training front! Learn more about our new Leadership Programmes, DofE during COVID-19 and Be Internet Citizens Programme.

Leadership Programmes

The training team are really excited to be starting two new Leadership Programmes in partnership with Greenham Trust. The next two Leadership Programmes are going to be run at Theale Green and Denefield School. Twelve Year 7 to 9 students from each school will be taking part. We are looking forward to starting the programmes after the Easter break with both schools. The Leadership Programme is an amazing opportunity for any young person who wants to support others in clubs, lessons, mentoring or organising events.

DofE during COVID-19

The coronavirus pandemic over the last year has seen young people out of school, potentially out of work and worried about what the future holds for them.

Doing the DofE award can bring structure, focus and goals to get young people through the current crisis and the resilience, adaptability, confidence and empathy to get ahead in the next chapter of your life. Now is the perfect time to find an activity that you can do from home and at the same time achieve recognition for your achievements.

Don’t let coronavirus stop you starting your DofE journey! DofE have lots of alternative activities to help you complete your Physical, Skills and Volunteering sections. Once you have completed these three sections, you will automatically receive a Certificate of Achievement which will enable you to proceed to the next level of your award. At a later date when it’s safe to do, you can go on to complete your expedition and/or residential to achieve your full DofE Award.

At Berkshire Youth we currently have 129 individuals working through the Bronze, Silver and Gold levels. Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic a year ago, we have seen 30 young people enrol on their DofE award, with 14 young people achieving their Certificate of Achievement and a further five achieving their full Bronze Award.

If you would like to start your DofE journey with Berkshire Youth, please contact us for more information.

Be Internet Citizens Programme

We have now finished delivering the Be Internet Citizens Programme for 2020-21 in partnership with UK Youth. This programme, which was created by Google and YouTube, has been a massive success within Berkshire. We had a total of 286 students complete the 6-hour programme. Our youth worker, Katie, would like to say a huge thanks to all students and school that signed up to the programme. We have met some incredible young people through delivering this and we are currently looking into receiving more funding for this programme so we can continue to deliver it to more young people in Berkshire.

We received some great feedback from groups saying:

• 100% of them would change how they acted online and that they enjoyed the course
• A high percentage of students reported that they are always happy to listen to people expressing different views to their own after attending the course
• “This is way better than doing school work”
• “This has been really good – thank you”

It has been a pleasure working with all students and we look forward to working with you again on different projects in the future.