Blog | Middlesbrough Voluntary Development Agency

All systems fail

6 July 2017 - 3:55pm

Arrived to work this morning to find all systems down, colleagues are off work and my meetings cancelled. I’m sat at my desk desperately trying to think out of the box... How will I achieve what I want to when all the things that usually enable me are not helping? I’ve busied myself tidying and updating my “To Do” List. This has only panicked me more, I need to get on.

“I’m sorry but you don’t have enough experience”

5 June 2017 - 11:58am

Place yourself in the shoes of a young person within the NEET (not in education, employment or training) category living in Middlesbrough. You’ve been applying for lots of jobs but, if you do receive a response to your application, the answer is no. The reason you are given is that you do not have sufficient experience. This is the beginning of the vicious cycle of inexperience and unemployment which many young people in Middlesbrough, and across the country, find themselves trapped in.

Fit and Fed - Shaping a youth offer for Middlesbrough

1 June 2017 - 4:22pm

Guest blog by John Downes, Head of Network Development at Streetgames

In a time when we are in the run up to a general election many questions are being asked by young people on what the future will look like for them. It was interesting on last night’s leaders debates that Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood mentioned the role that youth service and youth workers play in helping shape the future of young peoples’ lives.

Give young people some credit for their form of social interaction

30 May 2017 - 4:42pm

The idea of having circles of friends and social interaction has been changed by technology.

Top of the Class Clown - the relationship between social status and wellbeing at school

25 May 2017 - 1:56pm

Having recently taken on facilitating the voluntary sector's development of young people's wellbeing in Middlesbrough, I immediately thought about school, the socio-economic factors that influence relationship building and culture which effect a person’s development. I began to reflect upon what dictated being popular at school when I was there many years ago.