Youth Work in Collaboration with Gloucester Academy

Here’s a quote from Andy Prout on youth work we’ve done with a pupil. He’s part of the Senior Leadership Team at Gloucester Academy. The pupil in question worked alongside Rob at both the allotment and the lunch club. Any names have been replaced so as to respect privacy.

Testimonial

Robbie began working with Reyaz and the Fair Shares team in February 2016 following a troubled and difficult time in mainstream School. Robbie struggled with significant communication and interaction difficulties and despite not having a formal diagnosis of Autism, displayed significant Autistic traits in his day to day work.

Despite significant support inside of school, Robbie’s engagement had deteriorated rapidly, and we were signposted to the Fair Shares team to see if they could support Robbie in anyway. Following an initial meeting, Robbie began a partnership placement that saw him attend Fair Shares twice a week and school for the remaining three. In the following 4 months, the transformation we witnessed in Robbie was nothing short of amazing. His confidence grew as he found it more and more comfortable communicating with both adults and pupils. Robbie spoke passionately about the various projects that he was a part of and would often come in to school and seek out various staff to explain some of the new practical skills he had learnt. The most significant change we witnessed with Robbie was how much happier he seemed. This offsite learning opportunity had reinjected Robbie a sense of self-worth and energy that school was unable to provide.

A fantastic group of staff and brilliant community based initiative that we would be proud to work with in the future.