Liverpool Youth and Play Service website

View from a Street Mate

Jannine Saunders - Street Mate 

Presentation
When first applying for the position of Street mate I held in mind my previous experiences with the summer splash scheme. I had taken part in some activities over the last few years during the summer and found it fun and enjoyable so when the opportunity to become more involved in the scheme, I jumped at it. 

To work with and deliver activities to young people appealed to me a lot and I thought it would be something that I could relate to and be good at having already been apart of it.

When I first arrived at my centre, Grassendale Detached, I was no doubt like everyone else, very nervous. But I was also excited, I was looking foreword to getting stuck into the activities and helping out where I could with the new skills I had learned during the five weeks of training. I was also eager to meet the people I would be working with, and get to know them, and build up a good working relationship.

Over the six weeks summer holidays I got to take part in a lot of activities from coaching kids in badminton and organising matches and fun games, taking part in other sports and team games, going to self defence classes with some older youths, helping out with alcohol awareness sessions and even taking part in African drumming workshops, I found myself doing a variety of things and really enjoying myself as well.

Within a couple of weeks the opportunity to go onto a weekend camping trip to Snowdon in Wales, came up, and I quickly jumped at the chance. I love camping in general but I mainly saw the weekend away as a chance to get to know the people I worked with a lot better as well as a great experience in youth work. 

Through the weekend there where a lot of opportunities for team building experiences from putting the tents up, to helping with the cooking or just relaxing and finding out what our interests where. Not to mention that I got to learn a lot about what it takes to organise a trip like that, for example the risk assessment involved, keeping everyone safe. 

I also learned quite a lot, as I had to read a lot of information on diabetes, as one of the girls on the trip was diabetic, this was highly informative as well as necessary, just in-case. Through this I think I realised how youth work is really such a thought through process, and how a lot of precautions are made in order to ensure the safety of the children. 

Since beginning this job I have helped deliver and engage a large variety of activities, to a wide variety of people and ages. I feel really satisfied with the job, and that I've put in a lot of effort and because of that got out a lot of rewards, I've really enjoyed the job so far and its really opened my eyes and opportunities to what I want to do in the future. 

I've gained some valuable skills and friends through the experience, two people who helped and supported me through the whole process was Gail Goodwin and Phil Windeva, who I would like to thank because they have helped broaden my horizons and presented me with more opportunities to further my abilities and career, and further more I would like to thank Street mate for giving me this eye opening opportunity.