Our street-work team go out in our local area, increasing our visibility as a resource and practical service provider.  We actively seek out hard-to-reach people, which is one of our strengths as a local organisation.  The role of street-work is to inform people about our activities and other services available to them through the council and other organisations known to us.  We also enlist them on to our projects as well as gathering vital information on what the community needs in addition to building the important element of trust. We particularly target people who wouldn’t normally present themselves to community services. 

In our street work we use two different models, the first being general and the second, targeted street work. General street work entails combing local streets and places where we know young people or adults hang around. We make ourselves known to them, introduce them to our projects. We always study the dynamics of large groups within our area and their relationship with groups from neighbouring areas and estates. We leave our contact details with any individuals and groups, tell them where our office is and move on. We spend a proportion of our time networking with local businesses and other charitable organisations who provide services relevant to our clients. The actual time spent with the group will be short, between five and ten minutes. This process is repeated a number of times in order to build trust and understanding. We use these contacts as a way of building up knowledge of our community and seeking their opinions on the issues that affect them. We also use these encounters to discuss solutions to the problems they face. 

Whereas our targeted street work involves seeking out particular individuals or groups with whom we have built up a relationship and taking the materials they need, perhaps application forms or books to them. It is more time intensive and meetings can last from ten minutes to an hour. As the title suggests, our street work project is detached from our My Generation. This detached work is a key component of our work; it means we can address people’s issues out in the community and use this contact to help them solve their issues. As the relationship between us as a charity and the young people grows, we will make appointments with individuals or groups and encourage them to move outside their area to meet us or get involved in an activity. 

We feel it is important that this work is used to help people build confidence so that they become self sufficient.