Young people living away from home for the first time often lack basic skills.
We support the young people we work with to develop these skills and move towards independence.
St Christopher’s life skills programme, 51 Steps to Independence, is designed to cover the practical skills young people will need to achieve and sustain independent living. These include learning the best places to shop on a budget, opening a bank account, preparing a CV and practising for job interviews.
This programme is accredited. With the help of our donors, we have been able to register regionally as Assessment Qualification Alliance (AQA) Centres. We offer a programme of AQA Unit Awards, enabling us to award certificates for each step of a young person's personal development. Each unit encompasses clear, achievable targets and with over 18,000 units available each young person has a programme tailored-made to their own needs.
For some young people, completion of AQA Unit Awards is their first positive educational experience.
Life Skills Academy
To complement individual AQAs St Christopher’s has launched the Life Skills Academy. The Life Skills Academy is a programme of AQA Unit Award sessions that take place in a group setting. The Life Skills Academy takes into consideration the fact that many young people living on their own share similar support needs, for example:
- Tenancy sustainment
- Budgeting
- Being healthy/healthy eating
- Meaningful use of time – volunteering, seeking employment or training opportunities
The Life Skills Academy’s rolling programme offers a structured approach to meeting young people's support needs. The academy ensures that each young person leaves the service with a portfolio of Unit Awards that demonstrate their support needs have been addressed and met.
In addition, group work addresses social isolation and offers an opportunity to network with peers in a meaningful way.
Group sessions also enable support workers to reach more young people and deliver more sessions. It means that in many cases we are able to deliver substantially more than our contracted support hours.