Development Workers and Project Workers are working well together in their areas to provide consistent, sustainable outreach and employability support to young people and our partners across Fife. We are continuing to work alongside our Fife ETC employability partners to make sure No-one is Left Behind (NOLB) and especially young people affected by substance use.

This year the team have been involved in intensive training provided by NHS Fife Addictions psychology to upskill the staff and get support with the increasing demands working in this field can cause. This has proven to be of great benefit to staff and has provided us with more tools and strategies to continue to provide a trauma informed service for staff and young people.

Our partnership with Barnardo’s, to provide whole family support is continuing to develop. Staff are working on building relationships, making the joint work appear seamless to families and developing how we communicate effectively with each other and families about the support on offer.

Our Making It Work for Families partnership is going from strength to strength and this year launched their Stigma Toolkit they developed alongside families and Poverty Alliance, which has expanded into a Stigma Charter being developed by the Capital City Partnership. They continued to deliver a family residential experience over the summer alongside family trips, group work and residential experience for young people. The Primary 7 Transitions Test of Change is now well under way, working with young people and families in supporting their transition to High School.

The Youth Forum entered into a very exciting opportunity in partnership with the University of Stirling, to do research on how drug deaths affect young people and this work is well underway with ethics being approved and their first interviews taking place this summer. Look out for the launch of their findings once completed.

Our Youth Participation and Volunteer Development Worker continues to support our pool of adult volunteers and peer mentors who are assisting staff with street work, befriending their young people and supporting with group work and drop-ins. They have been involved in consultation work, setting up a youth panel to support Corra with funding applications, running development days for staff and being advocates for young people volunteering.