Blog | Middlesbrough Voluntary Development Agency

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.

Illness, responsibility and style

12 May 2017 - 11:58am

Question: What do old punk rockers do now?

Punk rock and cerebral palsy – the two things that give me (my) style. Confused as to where this is going? Well bear with me.

Kinship carers: why support matters

14 December 2016 - 11:49am

Every child taken into the care of a family member, when their own parent is no longer able to care, saves the public purse upwards of £35,000 per year. The figure applies to a staggering 200,000 children and young people currently subject to kinship care arrangements in England. That is three times the number of children and young people (70,000) in local authority care. This startling statistic got my attention at the ‘Relative Experience Project’ conference I attended on 29 November 2016.

Grassroots support makes a real difference: Hope4Summer

5 December 2016 - 5:45pm

A guest blog by Heather Black, Development Officer, Together Middlesbrough & Cleveland

For the past three years I’ve been involved in developing Hope4Summer – a project that brings together churches and community groups in different locations across Middlesbrough and Redcar & Cleveland. Hope4Summer offers fun activities and healthy food for children during the summer holidays, because we know that for many local families the summer break is a struggle with children at home 24/7 and no free school meals.