What We Do (our model of approach)

Whatever the time you are reading this web page, the likelihood is that one of our highly dedicated staff team will be engaged either face to face or virtually with one of our young adult clients, and either introducing them to or advancing them through our multi-award winning Appropriate Intervention Bridging Model™. 

We recognise that our targeted client population are stuck for a reason and can't simply be 'solved' with the same approaches or 'quick fixes' that have previously failed them. Neither can they be bribed or pushed onto programmes that take no consideration into their readiness, willingness, ability, or the 'real time' support needs they have in order to address the difficulties and conflicts they have in their neighbourhoods such as knife crime. This is why we have built a robust and comprehensive approach that seamlessly interweaves organisation-based and street-based interventions that equip our young people to engage us and our services until they can lead their own changes and initiatives.

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Organisation-based:

Our Centre - The Manor, is our Creative Intervention and Creative Industries Hub. It is so called to encourage and support young communities who are socially isolated or caught up in postcode divisions and conflicts, to come together and understand that the borough and world they live is everyone's Manor. It is a vibrant space that is continually adapting and evolving with the differing young people transforming their lives and their communities. One day is never the same as people have good a difficult days as they challenge and transform how they think, behave and take action to develop themselves and their communities. An example of what may be going on during any given week includes;

-  Violence reduction and gang mediation

- Employability and Enterprise skills experience e.g. Tech Industries, Construction Sector, Shoe Making, Textiles, Fashion, Digital Content Creation, Music Production, Acting, Film Making, Podcasts, and Make-Up Artistry.

- Learning about development in the wider context of regeneration and how to prepare and compete for the employment opportunities etc.

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This is done in partnership with Tower Hamlets Homes, The Bangladeshi Fashion Council, and our wider strategic intentional partners, in order to offer young people a better understanding of what is out there, what's possible, and the appropriate coaching support to accompany young people through their journey of change with us until our interventions are no longer required and they are self sufficient. 

Although we work with key strategic partners to do this work, we don’t depend on referrals, projects or programmes, and nor do we wait for young adults to walk through our doors to engage or reengage them. Our model of approach is relational, which is why we coined the phrase 'relationships for change' when we first started. We target and go to the very point of of our young adult clients' need and context, which can occur before, during and long after any engagement they may have in our building or our programming. 

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If you are a young person and feel that Streets of Growth could be the next step for you, please contact us direct on 0207 515 7356 or email us at mail@streetsofgrowth.org

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Outreach and Street Intervention Programme

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Street-based:

Although we work with key strategic partners to do this work, we don’t depend on referrals or centre-based projects or programmes to get young people in. We are not a Youth Club and neither do we wait for young adults to walk through our doors to engage or reengage them. Our model of approach is relational, which is why we coined the phrase 'relationships for change' when we first started. We strategically target and go to the very point of our young adult clients' need and context, which can occur before, during and long after any engagement they may have in our building or our programming. 

At Streets of Growth our Outreach and Street Intervention work is not a ‘detached’ part of our model of approach. In fact, it is central to all other programming we offer both internally at our creative hub and in the neighbourhoods, which is why we don't use the term 'detached outreach'. For example; over the past two years Streets of Growth has worked in an innovative partnership with the Police ASB team and Tower Hamlets Homes ASB team, bringing in Streets of Growth’s cutting-edge intervention model to provide a positive and sustainable route for young adults to make the lifestyle changes needed to break a cycle of harm, violence and poverty. Streets of Growth, with the police and THH, have developed an effective intervention pathway for identified young adults, which involves prevention and intervention, alongside law enforced Containment when it is required.

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This area of our intervention programming is not easy, time consuming, extremely challenging, and can be met with reluctance, resistance and relapse from young adults. However, this is the hard reality of this work and our targeted populations starting point of need as we build 'relationships for change' in order to engage and stay in it with them for the long haul, doing what it positively takes to see our young adult clients through to a healthier life and career style.

This is where Streets of Growth implement our Starting with NO! Framework

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Inspiring Young Parents Programme

Our Inspiring Young Parents Programme supports parents and single parents who are between the ages of 15-25 years. Both research and our experience of young parents engaging this programme indicates that they face many challenges and problems associated with being young parents. For example, many find it difficult to stay in education, which makes it more difficult for young mothers/fathers to find and keep well-paying jobs or careers. Even for those who manage to hold down part time employment, they can experience annual earning losses of upwards of 15-55%. 

Planned and unplanned pregnancies and parenting can strain and

end the relationships between young parents and add additional

tensions between them and their nuclear families. Depression can

be common among young parents as they may feel guilty or

anxious about the future as they become more and more

overwhelmed by their unfamiliar and ever-demanding roles as

parents or parent. This can take all the joy and fulfilment out of

young families if issues are left to manifest, especially for those

young parents who may not have the right level of support from

family or friends. Many may not feel they can’t ask for help from

family or organisations because they feel they will be judged or

worse.

But this is where our Inspiring Young Parents Programme comes in.

We run weekly sessions where young parents can come in or we go to them where they feel safe to build a relationship of trust and unravel where they feel stuck or unsure. When they come to our centre we simultaneously support the young child at our creche facility whilst a young mother and/or father work with our team in personal and professional development areas that include:

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• Planning out their future

• Develop a personalised plan of action to achieve their vision

• Discover what wider external services and support mechanisms are on offer

• Supported into education programmes

• Supported to become employable and employed

• Relationship development coaching between themselves and their young child

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Please note, this service is offered in conjunction with our key professional partners who specifically specialise in the field of Child Care.

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If you feel this is a programme offer that fits your needs then please get in touch and speak to us.

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The way in which we measure and prove our work strategically interweaves with how we design and deliver our model., which includes the starting point of readiness, and addressing the resistance or any relapse of our young adult clients.

Evaluation has been the biggest and most central challenge to our pioneering approach. Why? because we do not simply work with young people to get them on a programme or into a job and then move on to the next cohort of young people.  Doing and measuring the work in this way only measures an ‘output’ and doesn’t measure how you got there, if they are still in a job, or if they have changed problematic behaviours in their neighbourhoods outside of organisational settings. 

The young adults we seek out and encounter are stuck, socially isolated, and often caught up in harmful and criminal lifestyles and negative peer associations. Our interventions are usually first met with resistance for the first 3-6 months, and even when a young person starts to engage several months down the line, they can slip back and relapse into self-defeating behaviours that require us to shift our strategies to re-engage them until they reach a stage of maintaining positive and progressive socioeconomic futures.

As the knowledge and delivery of our work evolved, it became obvious that we needed a far more articulate language and robust measuring system that truly recognised the level of detail and lengths in which we go to in order to achieve our impacts with our young clients and partners. Certainly in terms of measuring 'outcomes' such as changing lifestyle. Previously, in collaboration with one of our international partners back in 2014, we were using a web-based evaluation system that measured our efforts and outcomes, as well as our outputs. However, when recent legislation changed regarding data collection, the company running the system withdrew from the UK market.  As we measure our work against the same criteria that we developed on that system, we are currently developing a new online facility to advance the way our approach and impacts are measured, and that clearly and undeniably helps to reveal what works and what doesn’t to ensure we are true to our vision, mission, purpose and values. 

We have recently re-evaluated our entire model of work and now solely focus our intensive targeted support on high need and risk 15-25 year olds, and work with a total of 200 young adults per annum.

Since being established in 2001, over 4000 young people have benefited directly from our work and services. Below are some facts and figures to demonstrate the impact our work has had in the east end of London:

86% of the young adults we re-engaged with went on to successfully complete their secondary school education

85% who were not in education, employment or training were successfully re-engaged into sustained career progression pathways

69% of the young adults who we re-engaged with were prevented from getting involved in gang 

association and activity

39% with extreme gang relations who received intervention support were able to fully leave gang related friendships, violence and criminality

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Additionally, many of our young clients have also gone on to help and mentor others in their own communities, as well as support us here at Streets of Growth.

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Again, when you consider that it costs you the tax payer approximately £200.000 per year for a young adult to be incarcerated in a juvenile or adult prison, without no guarantee that upon their release they will not go on to re-offend, and yet, it costs approximately £400.000 to fund Streets of Growth to work with 200 young adults per year with the proven impacts you read above (that's without adding the additional costs we are saving society such as vandalism, burglaries, Police etc, and wasted costs on courses young people drop out of and don't complete, which can cost around £3000 per student.

The hard reality is, that we can not do this work without your support whether that's government grant funding, business or private donations etc. Every penny matters just like every young adult matters.

2000 Winners
The Churchill Fellowship
2001 Winners of The Viscount De L'Ise Award

Streets of Growth™ -
Applied Research Unit

The world is changing faster than ever, which for those young populations who are stuck, it can be an extremely daunting and uncertain prospect. We have committed our lives to creating breakthroughs that strike a healthier balance between community resident led and organisation/institution led solutions to ensure vulnerable young communities are not left behind or in harms way. To achieve this, Streets of Growth has undisputedly played a crucial role in the understanding, development and advancement of prevention and intervention work. Our unique blend of innovative research, frontline practice, and evidence based impacts have always been at the heart of our model of approach. In fact, following many years of intensive frontline intervention work, Streets of Growth was founded on the back of a Churchill Fellowship researching and sharing best practice in the U.S.A. Since then, numerous other 'self funded' trips have been made back to the states and other countries such as Australia and Holland. We have also had researcher-practitioners visit us from countries including the U.S., South Korea, and Holland.

Our Applied Research Unit is an ever expanding global community of thought leaders and difference makers who create, develop, access, adapt, and use accumulated knowledge, theories, concepts, methods, tools, and techniques for the practical application of outcome driven impacts. This in turn helps us to see and understand our local practice delivery from a wider national and global context and identify where any bottle necks and obstacles are preventing us from performing at our very best. Reflecting in this way continually challenges and transforms our model of approach, our own behaviours, and influences 'best practice' and policy change. Our Applied Research Unit has a ‘close-to-the-problem’ and ‘close-to-the-data’ orientation dealing with solving practical socioeconomic problems in a systematic way and in the ‘real time’ lives of inner-city young adults. It is not a rigid and restrictive canon of research methodology. It is continually reflected upon, questioned, and challenged in order to unearth any unhelpful habitual behaviour, cognitive bias, and blind spots. During this process, our research and practice is adapted and advanced with interweaved experiential innovation to ensure our work remains field leading, and transformative in advancing the lives of our high risk young adult clients.

Current collaborative research projects include:
- Modern Day Slavery - (Belfast/England)
- Magic in Intervention - (Cape Town - Africa)
- Cognitive Behavioural Development (USA)
- Magic, Gangs & Prison (National)