Youth Access

Off the Record, Croydon: what’s it like being 15?

06 November, 2009

On Friday 23rd Youth Access joined staff, the management team, young people and their families, the deputy Mayor of Croydon and a host of friends and well wishers, to celebrate Croydon Off the Record’s 15th anniversary.

After a warm welcome in 15 languages, from Norwegian to Pashtun to Albanian, reflecting the huge diversity of Croydon, London’s biggest borough; staff, the management team and young people together shared their experiences of ‘what it’s like being 15’.

There were poems, some amazing creative writing, Q and A sessions sounding out the opinions of a panel of young people and a highly entertaining one man theatrical sketch. And also some funny, moving and hard-hitting stories from young people who have benefitted from OTR’s many services. 

We also heard from the staff team and volunteers about how the service has blossomed: from early days as a 3 person team, helping 90 young people, through the establishment of groundbreaking new services – for young carers, those with drug and alcohol issues, self esteem and anger management work, among many others. The counselling service now delivers 110 sessions per week, and Off the Record as a whole helped over 3,000 young people over the past year across a huge range of services.

So what is it like being 15 in Croydon? One strong theme was that young people are fed up with negative perceptions of them in the media, leading to mistrust towards them in the community when they just want to be treated like ‘normal people’. To quote from Paige,15, who performed a poem she’d written in a duet with her grandmother ‘Being 15 isn’t good or bad / just young people trying not to go mad’

Karen Stott, Director, with management team colleagues and young people from Off the Record

Big congratulations to Karen Stott and team, and for more details about Off the Record, or if you are interested in getting involved as part of their management team, please contact info@offtherecordcroydon.org.

Read more at Off the Record, Croydon's website

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