Love and Happiness

quotes2“The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.~ Mother Teresa

“Start your child’s day with love and encouragement and end the day the same way.” ~ Zig Ziglar

“No one can make you feel inferior without your permission.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

“I’ve learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not on our circumstances.” ~ Martha Washington

“In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.” ~ 1 John 4:10-12

Coaching is a proven method to address emotional, social and development needs of young people. Young people suffering from low self-esteem can underachieve at school and are often from deprived backgrounds.  Although a church-based related group provides some help, our activities are non-religious and are open to young people from all backgrounds. Our activities are aimed at supporting young people and youth groups building trust and teaching new skills that will enable them to meet and respond to day-to-day issues and the challenges they face in their daily lives, such as dealing with bereavement, eating disorders, bullying, depression, truancy, peer pressure and family breakdowns.

Dealing with such personal crises or difficult situations are among the concerns  parents and young persons have highlighted as issues that they face and very often find difficult to discuss or share. Young people are often unaware of the help and support that is available professionally, and even if they were aware may not consider that these organisations were for their benefit.

There are programmes provided by organisations and councils but more often than not these young people are not in a position of confidence to initiate contact or ask for help or even to acknowledge that they are in need of help in the first place. This project aims to initiate the contact, to reach out to the children and young, build trusts and provide emotional and practical support.

Activities Undertaken

Through talking to young people and their families – to facilitate this parish community meetings were set up to give people an opportunity to raise their concerns in a focus group discussion environment.

Face-to-face interviews were carried out, which allowed for more in depth discussions to obtain peoples’ views on what were of key concern to them both as parents and as families.

Other surveys were carried out through focus group discussions with local church and community groups.

Key concerns that arose from these meetings toward the children were how to cope with unruly behaviour, alienation, dealing with bereavement, eating disorders, bullying, signs of depression, truancy, peer pressure and the pressures arising from family splits.

These meetings provided the basis for understanding the needs of the parents and youth in the local community. It also provided an insight into some of the local issues and the schools that the children attended or failed to attend.

Some of the local schools have been canvassed to see if they would be willing to take part in our project and the feedback from this has been quite positive.

Raising Awareness

Phone canvassing – schools; local youth community groups

Leaflets /Email – Local Schools: Community Centres; Local libraries; Leaflets disseminated through the families that attend the church.

Disseminate in public places in the neighbourhood; along with postings on message boards.