Business Support Blog

Hello again,

As Business Support Officer here at Fast Forward I have to (try to!) keep up with all our development officers, their projects and their ideas, or at least to have a basic idea of what they’re up to! One of the most interesting things about trying to stay in the loop is getting to see how each of the projects inter link.

Our work on knife crime, for example, intersects with our work on alcohol because a majority of offences where a knife is used also involved alcohol. Indeed, the majority of offences committed by young men now in young offender’s institutions are committed under the influence of alcohol, which I found a remarkable statistic.

Fast Forward’s work is focused on health and wellbeing as a whole and very often the issues of substance use sits alongside a range of related matters such as mental health and joblessness. Poverty, poor mental health and substance misuse are often found together. Since starting working here, almost exactly a year ago, I have found that all these issues merge and feedback into one another.

Fast Forward takes a holistic view of  the people we work with. Our development officers start with asking the young people about their lives and what they would like to talk about. By working with small, interactive groups we let them take the lead, and through our peer education work , they engage with other young people in a similar way. This means that we get to hear first hand about what is on young people’s minds. Meanwhile I try to keep a handle on all our work and see how it’s all connected.