StreetDoctors Supporters Newsletter December 2016

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It's been a fantastic year for StreetDoctors! New teams in Glasgow and Cardiff means we are one step closer to being truly UK wide. We held our biggest annual training conference so far welcoming over 350 volunteers and speakers to Birmingham Medical School. And we have been gathering further evidence of the impact of our sessions. In this issue a youth worker reveals how two young people put their skills into practice acting to assist in a medical emergency.

Read on to find out more.

New volunteers trained

StreetDoctors welcomed over 350 volunteers and speakers to the University of Birmingham Medical School at the end of October. New volunteers received training from medical, child protection and legal experts, learning haemorrhage control and cardiopulmonary resuscitation, safeguarding and the legal issues facing young people caught up in violence. The StreetDoctors training team (made up of experienced volunteers) taught new volunteers how to deliver quality sessions to young people.

On the Sunday the bigger issues surrounding youth violence were explored by our panel of expert speakers. Ebi Iyere, a young person, youth worker and trusted friend of the Lambeth community described how youth violence has personally impacted her life. Tracey Ford from the JAGS Foundation gave powerful and moving testimony of losing her son to violence in 2007 and the subsequent work of the JAGS Foundation, set up in his memory to address youth violence in South West London. Chief Superintendent Sally Bourner of the West Midlands Police emphasised the importance of a partnership approach through the work of the West Midlands Violence Prevention Alliance. Steve Boote, Restorative Justice Practitioner at Liverpool Youth Offending Team, and Simon Jackson, founder of StreetDoctors, outlined the early days of StreetDoctors and where our work fits within a prevention framework.

308 volunteers left feeling hugely inspired, and determined to make a difference to youth violence in their local area, with all new volunteers committed to delivering their first session by Christmas.

Conference was hosted by the super organised and efficient Birmingham StreetDoctors team, and made possible with generous grants from the Newby Trust and The Funding Network. Thank you to all our wonderful speakers, workshop leaders, helpers and volunteers who made the conference such a success, and to University of Birmingham Medical School for the fantastic venue.

2016 in numbers

1,548
Young People Taught

389
Teaching Sessions

185
New Volunteers

StreetDoctors Teams

2
New Cities

Cardiff

&

Glasgow

*Data as of 11/12/2016

New Medical Director
In August we bid goodbye to Dr Rebecca Long. Becky was our Medical Director from August 2015 and has returned to her medical training as a junior doctor and we have been joined by Sam Jackson, who has taken on the role for this coming year.
Sam has completed his first three years of medical study at the University of Leeds, and has been a volunteer for the Leeds StreetDoctors team for the last two years, becoming Leeds team leader in 2015. Leeds is one of StreetDoctors highest performing teams and this year won the StreetDoctors Award for Team Impact, having delivered 38 sessions in the last 10 months. We are delighted to welcome Sam to the HQ team!

Young people take action

We are currently piloting StepWise, our peer support programme, in London. Young people at risk of violence gain an entry level accreditation to first aid skills and explore career opportunities within the medical and health sector. We have been working in partnership with New Horizons Youth Centre for young people affected by homelessness. Recently whilst we were delivering a session at the centre, a young person in the building collapsed. Knowing there were medics in the building staff ran to come and get us. By the time we arrived a young person who had previously attended a StreetDoctors session had called an ambulance, checked the victims breathing and put them into the recovery position.

See the video from New Horizons Youth Work Manager Danielle Williams outlining the incident.

Danielle Williams - Youth Work Manager at New Horizons Youth Centre

Paul Hamlyn Foundation

We are delighted to announce that Paul Hamlyn Foundation have agreed to support StreetDoctors work through their Youth Fund and have awarded us £60,000 over the next two years. Their support means that we can reach many more young people who are at risk of youth violence, with the aim of teaching 2800 young people a year by 2018. We will also be piloting elements of StepWise, our peer education programme, in three locations outside London, as part of our commitment to providing opportunities for vulnerable young people to access employment opportunities in the medical and healthcare sectors.

Thank You!

Thank you to the Newby Trust for their generous donation towards the costs of our annual training conference, and to The Funding Network who supported our expansion to Cardiff and Glasgow. Huge thanks go to our amazing medical volunteers, and to all our supporters, funders and delivery partners. Without you our work would not be possible. Together we can tackle youth violence and improve the life chances of young people at risk.

We have moved!

StreetDoctors moved to new offices at the beginning of November. After two great years at the Hackney Pirates we had outgrown our office there, and moved a quarter of a mile down the road to Bootstrap Enterprises, a community business hub.

Our new office address is:
Unit 311, Colourworks
18-22 Ashwin Street
London
E8 3DL

Phone remains the same:
07763 457712