Digital Media, Children and Young People

This summer I really think that we’ve started to integrate digital media into our work across the Youth Service and spread the message of what we do wider. For example, one of the by unintended by products of the young people blogging from India has been the impact on not only on them but also [...]

Chinese Exchange Group Returns!

Wow! At last our Chinese partners, the Shandong Youth Federation, have confirmed that they will be coming to the UK on the return leg of the Youth Exchange we’ve organised! Some of you may recall that last year was the first opportunity we had to take a group of young people to China. They blogged [...]

Blogging and Wiltshire Youth Service

A colleague and myself found ourselves in rural Wiltshire the week before last thanks to David Whelwell. I’ve conversed with David online both here and also through other online forums. He followed our China Exchange Blog and invited us to talk to colleagues from Wiltshire Youth Service about our blogging experiences. It was a really [...]

China Follow Up Residential

It’s been a hectic couple of weeks with more to follow! The weekend before last I was part of the staff team who met up again with the young people who went on the China Exchange visit last October. We were running a follow up weekend with several experiences. We were reviewing their experiences, supporting [...]

Initial Reflections on Blog by young people in China

Well, I’ve more or less had the final blogs through from China and thought I’d just share my initial thoughts about how we’ve used this tool so far for this experience. We will be ongoing with the blog (hopefully) in the future but it’s been a real learning experience for all involved and I have [...]

Blogging from China…

…is proving interesting! It appears that our WordPress site is blocked so our foray into blogging with young people has taken a slightly different turn with the group writing their blogs and then emailing them to me to post along with their photos. It seems to be working, so if you’re interested check it out [...]

China Update 4 – They’re Off!!

Well, the day I thought would never arrive finally has…….as I speak there are 12 young people and 3 youth work staff from West Sussex on a coach starting their adventure to China! Wow! I’m amazed that we’ve managed to get everything in place. On Tuesday we had our last staff meeting. We went over the [...]

China Update 3

I thought it was time to bring us up to speed with all things Chinese! Unfortunately I’ve had to withdraw from the exchange (at least physically) as I’ve not been too well and felt that I wouldn’t be able to lead and support the group on this exciting adventure as well as I needed to. [...]

China Update – 2

Wow! We’ve just had a great weekend at Cobnor Outdoor Actvities Centre with the group of young people heading to China. It was a pretty packed weekend with lots of laughs, and serious discussions. We started off getting to know each other and working out how we wanted to work and live together both on [...]

China Update – 1

Ok – I’ve decided that I need to somehow order my China inputs so I’ll just number the updates from now on. (unimaginative I know but hey…at least there’ll be some sort of order!). Well, we’re going!! Last week I had to make a call as to whether to book flights or re-reserve them and have to [...]