We deliver bold, interactive and engaging workshops to young people in schools, colleges and other education settings, including pupil referral units and alternative provision from key stage 3 through to key stage 5.
Often, young people when faced with having to leave home, don’t know where to turn for support, and are excluded from official statistics. Hidden homelessness is common, with many young people sofa-surfing, staying in temporary accommodation, or unsafe places and at increased risk of harm, abuse and exploitation.
“People need to go into schools to talk about it. If someone had come to my school when I was younger, I might not have gone through what I did.” Max, 21, who experienced family breakdown and slept rough
We offer a range of workshops as detailed below for young people and training for professionals, all delivered by skilled and experienced facilitators and all able to support with delivering relevant parts of the PSHE and RSE curriculum for each key stage along with supporting with Ofsted requirements, particularly around safeguarding young people.
In collaboration with the BRIT school, we have created a series of engaging and hard-hitting films – Choices, Missing and Moving On, which provide the basis for our whole-year workshops and all tailored to the different needs and risks young people are faced with as they move through key stage 3,4 and 5.
These one hour workshops are designed for large groups of young people in assembly style-settings and are fully interactive, energetic and delivering key messages around youth homelessness, healthy relationships, exploitation, responding to risk and making safer choices. They can also be tailored for smaller groups where required.
Each of our whole year workshops can be extended to be delivered in two hour workshops, enabling more in-depth discussion and exploration of a range of issues and risks raised in Choices, Missing and Moving on.
We offer a series of four workshops, each one hour-long, aimed at groups of 15-20 young people who are identified as vulnerable. This covers emotional literacy and wellbeing, healthy relationships, managing conflict and making safer choices. We are flexible in how we can deliver these depending on your requirements and work in partnership with education settings to reach young people most at risk.
“I was able to speak openly in a friendly and non-judgemental atmosphere. It really helped to be able to speak about emotions and thoughts, which I don’t usually get the opportunity to do.” Year 12 student, Burnside College
We offer a half day training session aimed at supporting professionals to identify young people at risk of youth homelessness, understand young people’s housing rights and responsibilities, recognise and respond to related safeguarding issues and have the skills and knowledge to effectively support young people to prevent youth homelessness.
“I now feel more confident to advocate for our young people in relation to youth homelessness.” Staff member, Croydon College
Young people have the chance to make the decisions for a teenager affected by homelessness, taking part in workshop activities to learn about family breakdown, healthy relationships, exploitation, identifying risks and seeking support.
A detective-drama to engage young people in an exploration of why a young person might go missing from home and the unsafe situation they may experiences. Exploring healthy relationships with family and peers, conflict, CCE and CSE, risk-taking and making safer choices.
Focusing on their transition to adulthood, young people look in-depth at the reality of leaving home and their changing responsibilities, relationships, and decisions. They develop an understanding of why so many young people experience homelessness and are given vital information on the options and support available.
+4,000 students reached
90% of young people said that they had a better understanding of how young people can become homeless at the end of the session
100% of teachers would recommend our programme to others
90% of young people said that they now knew more about how to keep themselves safe if they didn’t have somewhere stable to live
94% of professionals agreed they were better able to recognise when a young person was at risk of homelessness after the training
“The interactivity and how young people can relate to the characters in the video increase their understanding of issues discussed.” Oasis Leesbrook, KS3 – Choices
“Both staff and students found our session with Depaul to be inspirational, informative and thought-provoking.” Gumley House School, KS5 – Moving on
To find out more about the programme and costs, please get in touch with our education team in your relevant region:
London: education.lse@depaulcharity.org.uk
South Yorkshire: education.sy@depaulcharity.org.uk
Greater Manchester: education.gm@depaulcharity.org.uk
North East: education.ne@depaulcharity.org.uk
For enquiries outside of these regions or those that cover multiple regions, please contact amy.smith@depaulcharity.org.uk