Fostering Positive Relationships: YPC

YPC began their journey with F4YP finding it hard to make new friends and maintain relationships.

F4YP began attending regular CIN meetings for YPC. Through these meetings it became apparent YPC struggled to regulate their emotions and behaviours and that they would benefit from our therapeutic support and attending our after-school clubs. YPC continued to attend our sports after school club and signed up for our holiday club. F4YP visited YPC at school prior to YPC’s first holiday club to complete a Pastoral Support Plan to ensure we could best support YPC including learning about their likes/dislikes and triggers. This was a positive visit and YPC was very open to chat with our team and looked forward to attending. 

Due to the ongoing work with YPC and their family, such as providing pastoral support alongside activities at clubs and therapeutic support, F4YP gained a better understanding of why YPC may become frustrated or upset, and how to de-escalate these moments quickly and efficiently. Continuing our support such as liaising with YPC’s school and supporting them to get an EHCP. With their EHCP this ensures we can put in place the same strategies for YPC to excel in our setting.  

Following our team building strong relationships with YPC and seeking to understand their emotions and behaviours, we see far fewer incidents within our setting, and more recently YPC has built positive relationships with other young people during their time at F4YP.   

We asked YPC why they like coming to Fun 4 Young People, YPC responded “I enjoyed making and seeing new friends”. YPC now attends regular after school swimming lessons, contributing to their target from TAF meetings to improve physical fitness, they have done well to take on board the swimming teacher's instructions and can now swim 50m without stopping. They are also maintaining friendships made through our holiday clubs at their swimming lessons. This summer YPC said they felt they had grown in confidence and that coming to F4YP made them happier.  

Since our initial school visit, YPC has now attended 12 weeks of holiday clubs over 3 years, much of this has been through the holiday and food activity fund. 

F4YP have built and maintained a strong relationship with Mum who always keeps us updated if YPC has had a bad night/morning, which helps F4YP to understand YPC’s behaviours and body language, enabling us to help YPC regulate their emotions when necessary, and put in place appropriate interventions.  Mum has also accessed our parenting support programme and found it really helpful in approaching parenting their YP with SEND.

YPC now has far fewer moments of dysregulation or outbursts and it’s been a pleasure to see YPC’s confidence and resilience grow over the time they have spent at F4YP. It was noted from our team that in every holiday club YPC has attended they have tried something new and made new friendships. This summer one tutor spoke of YPC “[YPC] has been asking relevant questions during the last two holiday camps in April and this summer, it has been great to see them engaging within the sessions in sport and start to become a bit of a leader, helping their peers understand the tasks. They have always had the potential of self-confidence which has been unlocked and grown within them in the last 6 months. This can still be drawn out, but it’s wonderful to see how much they have progressed.”