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Member Profile: Streetwise, Newcastle

08 April, 2009

18 years of Streetwise services

Streetwise Young Peoples Project is based in Newcastle upon Tyne's city centre and was established in 1991 in response to the health needs of homeless young people in the city. Today the project offers young people aged 11 - 25 from across the region a range of different services including a mental health and counselling service, contraception and sexual health service, information and advice drop-in and youth work support services which includes Crunk an under-18 event and Crunkerz a support group which meets once a week. The Crunkerz group has been involved in many activities over the past few years including Leeds Carnival and a residential.

Streetwise is an incredibly busy service, seeing over 300 individuals for counselling and over 6000 young people through the drop-in last year with over 17,000 contacts.

Newcastle’s busiest young people’s sexual health and contraception service

The drop-in and contraception service is the busiest for young people in Newcastle and as a result Streetwise is the most used C.Card outlet in Newcastle for condom distribution and are one of the top screeners for Chlamydia.

The team came up with the ‘do you want to be a Jedi?’ promotion which gives out free glow in the dark condoms in exchange for a Chlamydia test in response to low take up of the test. This promotion has now been rolled out across the region. In addition to sexual health young people can access drop-in for help with housing, stop smoking, drugs and alcohol and any other issue that may be affecting them.

Supporting young people’s mental health

The Mental Health and Counselling Service offers counselling both within Streetwise and within 2 local schools. Streetwise also runs a self harm group who will be releasing an anthology of poems in the near future. Young people access the mental health service for a range of issues including depression, eating distress, anger management and feeling suicidal. Young people can access counselling for as long as they need to.

Research: young people’s decision making around sex

For the last 2 years Streetwise has been researching young people’s experiences of, and decision making regarding sex. Ellen Smith has been leading on this project and has used her research findings to develop resources for both workers and young people around sexual decision making. The research and resources will be launched at a conference later in the year. Moreover Streetwise has worked with young people to design campaigns locally around sexual health and alcohol and developed training for workers around Pornography.

MyPlace funding success: £5 million for a new building

In February Streetwise were awarded, along with Newcastle City Council £5 million as part of the MyPlace programme for a brand new building which should be due to open late 2011. All the staff and young people are very excited at the prospect of a new home particularly as the current building is not fully accessible. Congratulations to the Streetwise team!

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You’re welcome – a young people friendly health service

In addition as one of 23 national pilot sites Streetwise were awarded the You're Welcome quality standard from the Department of Health in March at a ceremony at the House of Lords. The You’re Welcome quality mark is for being a young people friendly health service. This will be rolled out nationally this year.

Working with Youth Access

Aylssa Cowell, Youth Work Service Manager said “We are currently part of 2 pilots with Youth Access, Outcome Measurements for Advice Work, and the Making Tracks Project. It has been a fantastic opportunity for us to draw upon the expertise of Youth Access to improve our service up here in Newcastle. Being part of Youth Access means we have access to training and expertise that we wouldn’t normally have”

Youth Access’ Pamela Verma says “Streetwise is a very dynamic and ‘on-the-ball’ agency, well organised and professional. The service is obviously highly thought of locally and keen to get involved with new initiatives and projects: it’s a welcoming and young-person friendly space, reflecting young people’s involvement.”