How Paul encourages young people’s creative ambitions

Using strong relationships and creative enterprise to support young people 

The Ambitions Initiative is part of a wider group of support services called Barnardo’s Old Market Services based in central Bristol. Operating since 1995, the Old Market Services includes ROUTES (which provides support for those who are being criminally exploited), BASE (which provides support for those who are being sexually exploited), and Safe Choices (which provides support for those who have gone missing or who have run away from home). 

At the Ambitions Initiative, Development Workers like Paul support children and young people up to 24 years old who are at risk of harm where there are known risks or concerns around peer-on-peer violence or criminal exploitation. The service is focused on building strong, trauma-informed one-to-one relationships and promoting creative opportunities.  

“What we find particularly important in this kind of service is creating strong, transformational relationships with the young people we support because we know we can achieve change out of that very strong relationship-based work. But reaching young people who are being criminally exploited can be very difficult, so we need to really consider what we can offer them to pique their interest. 

We thought about what they were interested in doing and what our offer should be to support their ambitions. We realised what we need to do is provide opportunities through creative enterprise and that's what our Ambitions initiative is about,” Paul said. 

How the Ambitions Initiative works 

Young people who go missing, or who are at risk of criminal or sexual exploitation, can be referred to the Initiative and it supports them with creative projects like writing, recording, and performing music or designing their own clothing and building their own brands. You can purchase some of these clothing designs through our online shop. 

"I realised quickly that we would need to have staff who can help deliver this kind of offer. And we have a brilliantly diverse team. For example, Jack, my co-worker, he's a big local freestyler here in Bristol. Jack's also 29 – it’s the perfect age difference for a 19-year-old to look up to. So, it's really important for us to get the right people in to do this work,” he explained.  

Jack, also a Development Worker, explained how the project’s creative focus allows young people to feel comfortable expressing themselves, “As a tool of engagement, I think it's amazing. You can meet a young person and have to have a relationship with them for a year for them to even tell you how they're feeling inside, but if you bring them into a studio session and just press record and listen to what they're saying through the microphone, you'll be able to gauge a very good picture of what their life is like outside of Barnardo's.” 

Concerns around young people’s physical safety, mental health, and school attendance 

Paul described how the pressure of daily living is often very complicated for the young people and for many, there are significant concerns around their physical safety, mental health, and school attendance.  

“These young people are often forced into a daily state of hypervigilance where they may have to take a different route to school to remain safe. 

Young people might also be referred either directly in relation to youth offending or when there are concerns raised because they might have been found with drugs, large amounts of money, or they’re carrying knives. Being exploited means they’re also likely to miss going to school and then there’s the possibility of them being moved around the country in county lines operations and going missing.” 

Adapting to increasing child criminal exploitation  

“I never thought I'd see this degree of youth violence in my lifetime like this and I've been doing youth work for 40 years. It’s very stark, which is why we have to think outside the box by not just supporting young people after violence happens – we’re trying to prevent it, by trying to find positive ways forward. 

This will mean in the future looking to interact more with communities, with families, with elders and with peer groups and continually being very credible with what we are offering to the young people that come through our doors,” Paul said. 

At Barnardo’s, we are also concerned that the cost-of-living crisis is having an unprecedented impact on children, young people, and families. With many struggling to access food, fuel, clothing and safe and warm housing, we are worried that this will leave more children at risk of exploitation (Barnardo’s, 2023). 

Improving young people’s long-term life chances 

“What we want to do is help produce healthy 30-year-olds, not just deliver a crisis response to 17-year-olds. We can do that, but everything we do has to consider ‘How will this work help down the road? How will this help their education, social groups, and their perceptions of relationships?  In the future, will they be able to settle down with a job, hold down a relationship or at least not be so socially isolated?’ 

With the young people we reach, we're really interested in their futures, and we want support them becoming healthy adults and coming back to us to tell us how their lives are going. One young man recently came back, and he apologised because he had to stop doing the Ambitions Initiative because he’d got a new job and was in a new relationship, but it was him that made that happen. Ambitions is all about encouraging self-agency."  

What Barnardo’s supporters should know about the Ambitions Initiative

“You’re investing in something that works because we offer something that young people are actually interested and invested in, something that’s credible and is something that provides different directions of travel. 

We're continually questioning how to make our work better for young people without compromising or colluding with some of the challenging thinking they may bring.  At the end of the day, what we care about the most is our young people’s safety and happiness,” Paul said, “They are all our futures.”