7:53am Wednesday 2nd September 2009
By Vicki Stockman
ART is being used as a powerful new tool to help tackle the problem of persistent youth offending.
Warrington and Halton Youth Offending Team ran a summer arts college for a handful of offenders to offer an alternative way to combat continual law breaking.
And if the verdict of youngsters on the course is anything to go by it has been a resounding success.
Sam Mannion, aged 17 and of Lovely Lane, said: “I think it’s given us lots of opportunities to do what we want, which we wouldn’t have had if we were not on the course.
“Things like this have a much better impact than anything that the Youth Justice Board come up with.”
The summer school gives young people the chance to try their hand at a wide variety of arts including painting, fashion, dance and drama.
Linda McKevitt, project leader, said: “A lot of them haven’t been in education for some time. They all thought art was just painting but they learned it’s a diverse thing.
“Embedded in the course is literacy and numeracy and we look at improving their standards. We did an assessment before and after last years course and there was an improvement in every one of them.”
At the end of the course they achieve a Level One Bronze Art Award, which is the equivalent of a GCSE, which became their first qualification for many of them.
Now in it’s second year it has already proved successful with seven out of eight who took part in the first course not falling back into a life of crime.
“It stops them from reoffending and we need to keep them structured because without it that is when they go off and do stuff they shouldn’t do,” added Linda.
For Sam the course has helped to turn his life around after spending years on and off working with the youth offending team and had been out of school for three years before he started the course.
“Since I have been on this I have been given a place on a media course at Warrington Collegiate. I would not have been able to come into mainstream education if I hadn’t been on the course,” he said.
He has also got a work experience placement with a media company in Manchester were he can follow his dream of working in film.
For others like Gayle Smylie, aged 18 from Hough Green, Widnes, the world of work now beckons as she takes up a role as a dental nurse and is leading an example to other young people in trouble.
She said: “I got asked to come on the course because I was an inspiration to the kids on the youth offending team.”
Last week the course finished with a presentation of their work.
But for youngsters like Sam it has changed their lives for ever.
He said: ”I came through it a better person.”
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