Stand and Be Counted!

This week (week 11) the Youth Academy took the Activities Agreement staff by surprise to say thank you for all their help and support in getting them into training and their continued support while they have been here! They also included a special surprise for one of the staff who was retiring at the end of the month!

Having planned the date, the invites, the gifts, the cards, layout of the room, the visuals, the music and refreshments AND having come in under their set budget! (Using a range of skills that they will use in the workplace) There was a large audience to witness the stunned key worker responses as they had been joined by KDS staff and Stevie Kidd!

There were nerves before the event but you would never have noticed as each of the young people confidently rose to the front of the room to speak and deliver gifts to all the key workers, Stevie Kidd and Andrew Craig! (it’s not often you can manage to get all of these people speechless at the same time but they did manage it today!) Personalised mugs, personalised chocolates for the men and flowers for the ladies, each person left with an anchor that will forever remind them of the big changes they have seen in these young people, and the impact they made on their life!

Brilliant transformation in the 11 weeks and this was recognised by everyone in attendance and by the young people themselves. When asked afterwards if it was as hard as they thought it would be there was a unanimous response of “No it was easy” When pointed out what they did that morning would be harder than any interview situation they realised they had overcome another barrier to their futures!
Standing straighter, glowing with confidence and pride and now very used to interacting with a variety of other people (and receiving compliments!) the guys left buzzing for their very well deserved weekend!

What a team, what an achievement, what a result!

2 Comments

Posted by Katie on 27 March 2011

It was phenomenal to watch and to look back at the differences from week one! Onward and upward guys, I am proud to see you all coming on in leaps and bounds! Keep it up! K

Posted by stephen kidd on 25 March 2011

fantastic achievement today, something that used to phase me as a kid was not confidence but standing in front of people, these guys have to realise the achievements today, absolutely unbelievable, proud of you guys I am proud we are now on ladder rail three out of a hundred rail ladder, we now aim for number 4

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