News from Going Forward

The Going Forward programme is celebrating three years of project delivery with the exciting news that funding is now in place to support our work for another three years.

May 2020 marked another major milestone for our Going Forward team – the third anniversary of us delivering long-term and early intervention workshops for vulnerable and at-risk young people.

For most third-sector organisations, the challenge of sourcing funding in order to continue to deliver vital services is an unyielding one, particularly in the current funding climate. That is why we were absolutely delighted to learn last week that we have been successful in securing funding for our Going Forward programme until 2023 from The City of Edinburgh Council Community and Families Fund.

This new funding will enable us to build on our success from the previous three years, by continuing to deliver workshop sessions that:

• empower young people to make better informed and healthier decisions
• encourage young people to be more responsible and active citizens
• enable young people to consider the consequences of engaging in risk-taking behaviour, both for themselves, and for their wider local community.

The Going Forward project – what is it and what have we done?

Since May 2017, Going Forward has delivered over 550 workshop sessions for approximately 50 organisations across the four Lothian local authority areas.

Our sessions focus on core themes of health, wellbeing and risk-taking behaviours:

• substance misuse
• sexual health and relationships
• online safety
• problem gambling

Sessions provide young people with information about risk-taking behaviours and encourage them to reflect on their understanding and attitude towards their own, and others, health and wellbeing.

Feedback from the organisations and young people that we work with has highlighted that workshops addressing substance misuse, sexual health, online safety and problem gambling are particularly beneficial for vulnerable and at-risk young people.

 

These same organisations have kindly provided us with case studies that show that young people can be prevented from reaching positive destinations because of issues around substance misuse, unsafe sex and poor mental health.

 

Several organisations have reported an unfortunate ‘revolving door’ cycle where many young people move from one local support organisation to another because they are often prevented from reaching a positive destination by the issues that are specifically addressed by our Going Forward sessions.

Want to find out more?

Keep a look-out for next month’s blog, where we will run through the steps we have taken to overcome some of the huge challenges posed by lockdown.

If you would like to find out more about the Going Forward project, or discuss ways in which we could work with your organisation to develop and deliver a programme of sessions tailored to the specific needs of the young people that you support, simply e-mail the Going Forward team, or give us a call:

• Donald Lockhart: donald@fastforward.org.uk
• Telephone: 0131 554 4300