communityactionplacements

Community Action Placements 2018

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We are now mid-way through our annual period of Community Action Placements, hosted by organisations known to, and funded by, The Rank Foundation.

Our School Leadership Award Holders are required to do two Community Action Placements (CAP), learning how charities work, volunteering their time to get stuck in and hands-on with their programmes. Every year, The Rank Foundation organise between 30 and 40 placements with charities and organisations who are members of RankNet. Some placements are residential and some are commutable, and for two weeks the Leadership Award Holders gain experience in the Third Sector.

Max

Ykids

“I have had non-stop fun throughout the entire time I’ve been in Bootle and the whole experience has been truly unforgettable. I’m honoured to have been able to act as part of such an amazing team of youth workers who have allowed me to develop my leadership qualities and contribute towards making a difference to the lives of a group of amazing young people. The variety of opportunities I was able to help out with was incredible. I experienced bee-keeping for the first time, helped decorate the community garden ready for a competition and even ended up putting my carpentry skills to the test by building props for a jungle themed holiday club for which I was part of the team that ran the programme. I truly couldn’t have wisher for a better time on my community action placement.”

Tasia

Khulisa

“I went into this placement with an open mind and no specific expectations, as I had not heard of Khulisa before and was excited to see what they entailed. Regardless of my limited knowledge on the charity I wanted to utilise this placement opportunity to nurture my leadership skills.


My time at Khulisa was amazing, there was always something to do; a way for me to contribute, meaning I never found myself bored. Every member of the charity’s team was welcoming and it was clear that they believed in the work they were doing in order to help overlooked groups in society. I found myself participating in taster sessions, writing articles for their newsletter and watching spontaneous live TV interviews of the charity’s CEO. I am appreciative of this experience and will certainly keep in contact with Khulisa as it is an exceptional charity, with equally integral people behind it.”

Bharath


PEEK (Possibilities for Each and Every Kid)

“My two week placement at PEEK has been an extremely enjoyable one. The children at each school for my placement are very kind, enthusiastic and brilliant and I am very grateful to PEEK for the opportunity they have given me to work with so many incredible people from a wide spectrum and to learn about different cultures and backgrounds. The staff have been amazing; they are welcoming, friendly and very passionate about their work. Each day has been wonderful, there is always something new and the children are so eager to get involved. A highlight for me would be the day that I went on a trip with a primary school to Glasgow Green as every single individual was just having a blast, every parent and child were having the time of their life. Even people that were not with PEEK were getting involved with all the activities. It was the most energetic and vibrant day for me.”

Jesse

Maundy Relief

“Observing people and giving advice to clients about benefits has helped to open my eyes as to how difficult it is for those who need to claim benefits to be able to figure out which ones are best for them and then how to apply for those benefits. I also attended training on Universal Credit which showed me how complex the system actually is. The second piece of training that I undertook was some first aid training which was very useful as it is transferable to any workplace. In addition to shadowing people and giving advice I also did some volunteering in the drop in which included preparing food parcels for those in need, preparing and serving a hot meal to people who wouldn’t be able to access it, as well as working behind the desk which included taking phone calls and assessing clients for food parcels and taking details for future appointments.”

A Summer of CAP

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We are now right in the middle of my favourite time of year – Community Action Placements time! When I started at The Rank Foundation in April 2015, I didn’t know very much about CAP and felt I had a lot to learn. Since then, I’ve realised this is probably how most of our newly selected Leadership Award Holders feel. This is the second summer of CAP that I have been involved in, and this year has been particularly rewarding.

To those of you who aren’t familiar with Community Action Placements (CAP), they are exactly what they say on the tin – placements within the community. Every April, a new cohort of around 25-30 students are selected to become Rank Foundation Leadership Award Holders. They are all just finishing their GCSEs and transfer into sixth form the following September, and their Head teacher puts them forward to The Rank Foundation because they show high standards of leadership potential. The Rank Foundation is with them throughout the entirety of their sixth form life, and we request that in return for our financial help with their education, they commit to two sets of two-week placements across the two years they are with us at a charity we have connections with.

We have been running these placements for many years, and the main purpose of CAP is to expose these young leaders to community projects and problems that exist in the UK, taking them out of their comfort zone to experience what ‘real need’ feels like, and get them involved with people who can show them how to make a difference in their community. To first year Leadership Award Holders this can be really daunting, but ultimately once they are on the placement, they are nearly always bowled over by what an impact the placement has had on their young life. By the second year of their award, the Leadership Award Holders are really keen to go back on placement, see something new and get really involved.

I think reading their reports post-placement is possibly one of the most rewarding parts of them job. Having been their age not so long ago, it is easy to see that they are only just beginning to realise what an impact these placements will have on their future.

One of our very new Leadership Award Holders, Olivia McCann, did her first placement this summer at Brook in Birkenhead, Liverpool.

“I have found my work placement in Liverpool to be an incredibly eye-opening and enlightening experience. The staff were all very supportive and it was a pleasure to be part of such a hard-working team. One of the highlights of my time at Brook was being involved in the ‘Diversity Role Models’ session in two local high schools. I found the experience to be very eye-opening as I was able to listen to first hand experiences of homophobia and gain an understanding of the many difficulties LGBTs still face in modern society. I particularly enjoyed helping with admin after these events as I was able to see how these sessions had influenced the attitudes of the pupils regarding sexuality and discrimination. I also gained a lot of insight during outreach activities such as ‘Bitesize’ and ‘Positive Futures’ as well as learning how to deal with sensitive issues whilst working as a team. My biggest challenge was having to travel such a long distance alone and living independently from my parents. In this way, I gained a lot of independence whilst in Liverpool as I had to organise my own time and travel effectively. I found my host family to be very welcoming and I particularly liked the fact that I was living with foreign exchange students and had the opportunity to meet new people and learn about other cultures. Overall, I have found my time with Brook to be very memorable and rewarding and I am very grateful for the opportunity to work alongside a leading charity and witness the impact of its work. I would be absolutely delighted to work with Brook in the future on a similar placement.”

Archie Brown, one of our second-year Leadership Award Holders, headed up to Bradford to The Edge Project this summer.

“At The Edge Centre I have had the opportunity to work with some very inspirational people, most of them having grown up on the estate. They are great company to work besides and you get the feeling they are really striving to make a difference in the community. They run daily drop in sessions for kids to come in and use the facilities the centre offers. These sessions have been a great opportunity for me to get to know the kids on the estate and set a good example. I have also been involved with a baby bank where parents, particularly teenage parents, can come and get support. The baby bank offers them everything from baby food to toddlers clothes. They also run various other sessions throughout the week including performing arts, girls club and breakfast club for child carers. All of which gave me the opportunity to build a relationship with the kids that came regularly and really tested my leadership qualities. I have also been working in the Church with Hilary, my host, on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday working with a program called Daybreak, helping out senior members of the community. Overall, it has been a very eye opening and even life changing experience, one I will definitely be looking to do again in the near future.”

We are always looking to the charities we work with to help provide placements for CAP. With the demand for placements getting higher each year, we are looking to expand the group of charities that we work with on CAP, so if you think your organisation might be able to help, and you have an existing relationship with The Rank Foundation, please get in touch so we can give you more information.

CAP 2016 – My Experience: Centre 63

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One of our Leadership Award Holders, Connie Lumsdon, is just finishing her second and final year with us by revisiting her original Community Action Placement at Centre 63 in Kirkby. We have asked Connie to give us a review of her two week placement, and we are delighted to hear what a fantastic time she had.

“Once again, I’ve had a wonderful time with the staff of Centre 63, a fantastic youth centre in Kirkby which serves the young people of the community incredibly well. I have, however, built on my experiences from last year, and feel as though I have seen a broader range of the many aspects and activities of the centre this year. Although I arrived with 2 weeks prior experience of the centre and its daily routines, I was taken aback by how much the centre has progressed and excelled in under a year, and almost had to start from scratch with my knowledge of the centre as there was so much more to learn.

Arriving on Wednesday evening, I put my suitcase in the office and dived straight into Youth Club with the junior group of 8-11 year olds. Throughout the Youth Club sessions, I had a great time with the children whilst creating emoji masks, colouring in flags of the world (and learning about many unknown countries in the process) and creating comics within the ComicsYouth project, all fuelled by healthy snacks provided free of charge by the centre. A particularly enjoyable Youth Club involved the creation of all sorts of weird and wonderful masks, followed by smoothie making and topped off with a long bike ride around the local area. Kirkby should be proud to have such wonderful, well-mannered, kind children at its schools, and I must say that I was astounded by how welcoming they were when they immediately greeted me and introduced themselves. I have been at every Youth Club since I arrived, and can confidently say that I will never forget some of those brilliant kids, especially for their range of talents; this Youth Club holds in its hands the actors, artists and philosophers of the future.

One of my designated tasks was to manage the social media accounts and website throughout my placement. Through the use of Hootsuite, a social media management application, I have been able to set up regular tweets and Facebook posts in order to further promote all the wonderful activities and clubs that are ongoing at Centre 63. Although social media is a valuable method of spreading news and advertising, the people of Kirkby already value this ever-welcoming place as an integral part of their community, and so the centre is constantly signing up more and more young people who were recommended to come here by friends or family. Many generations of families have been coming to Centre 63 for decades, and so the service provided here is not just a key building block in the local area but also in families themselves. This long-standing relationship with the community is essential to the work that the centre does, as a deep trust in the work of the centre is well established in the community.

I was, of course, warmly welcomed back to the YES Project as my desk base during the day, and have enjoyed achieving a deeper understanding of everything that the Tenancy Support Workers do for the young people of Kirkby and Knowsley. Young people between the ages of 16-25 are taken on to the project’s Tenancy Support Programme, and gain a high quality service of debt advice and financial help. Having said this, the YES Project does so much more than it says on paper. These amazing support workers are with their clients every step of the way, and help in any way they can; this includes applying for grant after grant and helping clients to fill out complicated benefit forms, as many young people who find themselves needing help struggle with illiteracy or learning disabilities. I hugely admire the work that Steph and Ann do for a living, and strongly believe that this youth work is not only having an impact on the people that they help but also affecting the community itself in a major way. During my time at the centre, I had the opportunity to go on some home visits with one of the Tenancy Support Workers. This experience was particularly poignant for me, as the majority of the girls who are on the programme are my age or younger, and are living on their own with their own children, often with little family support. I feel so much respect for these young girls, as I know that I would struggle dreadfully were I in their position.

Many young parents are unable to pursue hobbies or educational programmes, as there is a shortage of childcare providers – particularly affordable ones. Centre 63 makes every effort to ensure that young people can complete courses or partake in activities at the centre, such as free sewing classes or the Employability Programme: a 16 week course in which young people gain qualifications in English and Maths, heightening their attractiveness to potential employers. This is, once again, a clear example of how the centre is constantly looking out for the best interests of the young people of Kirkby.

The warm and friendly nature of Centre 63’s staff towards the young people makes it clear to me how this centre is such a success: everyone feels so welcome here from the very start, including me. I believe whole-heartedly in the work of Centre 63 and have absolutely no doubt that this amazing centre will only go from strength to strength in the future. I have so much gratitude for the constant support and open arms from all the staff here, but particularly from Jeane, the centre’s CEO. Not only has she made me feel as though her home is my home, but she also looks after and cares for everything and everyone in any way that she can. I have so much admiration for her, and indeed for the whole staff team at Centre 63. I wish the centre the best of luck in the future, but I can confidently say that they do not need it.”

The Rank Foundation would like to thank Centre 63, especially Jeane Lowe, for hosting such wonderful Community Action Plac