A Great Success Story

Young People are our Future helped me find my way

In July 2012 a 14 year old girl called Rebecca reluctantly attended one of the Life Skills for Children sessions held in Milton Keynes. Together with 17 other young people she participated nervously throughout the seminar and then disappeared very quickly at the end of the activity.

Three weeks later I met Rebecca again whilst delivering a PSHE session within her school. She was very keen to demonstrate to those around her that she knew the content of the course, so it seemed natural to let her assist me in running the event.

At the end of the session her teacher spoke to me and explained how challenging she has become at school. Attendance was poor and her behaviour was terrible. As a result she was behind on a majority of her school work.

I decided to ask Rebecca directly why she had such a difficult time at school, and the conversation revealed that her poor behaviour wasn't just restricted to school, but her parents were having a challenging time with her as well.

I invited her to attend a couple of events where I would have the opportunity to meet her parents and she obliged by turning up. It was very clear that unlike many young people I meet who have or are experiencing difficult times at home or school which has led them to behave badly, Rebecca has what could be described as a wonderful environment in what to grow up in.
Her parents were clearly devoted to her as were her younger siblings.

I decided to engage in a one to one session with Rebecca to attempt to find the problem. From the very beginning of the session, Rebecca kept highlighting how she has been given everything and desires nothing. Ipad, Iphone, TV, Laptop, you name it, she seems to have it. I asked how much she uses all of this technology and within a few minutes the problem was solved. Rebecca was like every other child who wants and wants and when they get, very quickly gets bored of it.

The girl who had been given everything was bored and not challenging herself to learn or have fun. Her brain was driven by the need to be entertained and when the IPAD stopped entertaining her she simply left it alone.

The more technology she had the more she relied on the initial buzz of entertainment but when it ran out she had to look else where for it. Mucking around and entertaining herself was the solution and in her own words she said "my friends laughed so I do it more".

This observation was relayed to her parents who initially dismissed my thoughts as stupid. I gave Rebecca a simple written task to create a diary of her life over a one week period. I asked her to write everything down from events that happened to her thoughts on subjects.

Rebecca did a great job and when I next visited the school I could not believe what I was told by the same teacher who had previously painted a gloomy picture of Rebecca. She said that her behaviour and attitude towards school and her work had improved massively.

So pleased with the result, I asked Rebecca to dedicate her time to creating a short story. It could be driven by any subject and she could explore her brain and see what happens.

Today I visited Rebecca in her school to run a PSHE session. I was pulled up by the teacher who said,
"In just a few months, Rebecca has gone from being behind in all subjects to being back on track with her school work, Her attitude towards school and teachers is completely different and I have just entered a short story she has written into a local competition because it is so good"

We often look so hard to find the reasons why young people do the things they do, but in this case it was staring both her parents and me in the face.

Well done Rebecca, I and we are proud of you.


The Life Skills for Children book has now been released and can be purchased at amazon. Click here for more information

I am often asked why our charity exists and why there seems to be so much interest in our behaviour modification mentoring course.  

Read on to find out why...

Figures show that Milton Keynes is in the top 10 places in the UK for
classroom violence. 

The statistics show that on average, there are 55 assaults in school per day across the country. In 2012/13 there were 10,750. 

Milton Keynes saw 779 incidents over a the two year period in classrooms across the city, the fifth most in the country.

The figures were obtained from 70 local authorities in England and Wales by the Sun on Sunday via a Freedom of Information Act.

Life Skills for Children : New - The ultimate anti-bullying and personal deve...

Life Skills for Children : New - The ultimate anti-bullying and personal deve...: New - The ultimate anti-bullying course for young people is available to BUY NOW! This book was written to support parents and teacher...

New - The ultimate anti-bullying and personal development course for young people is available to BUY NOW!

New - The ultimate anti-bullying course for
young people is available to BUY NOW!

This book was written to support parents and teachers in their quest to raise safe, confident, happy young people. 

Gary Payne is a veteran of the personal safety and development sector, and has dedicated over 25 years to developing and deploying training solutions for numerous organisations and individuals, including Police and Military personnel. 

The Life Skills for Children course is easy to learn and provides some very powerful messages, designed to increase a young persons confidence, personal safety, communication skills and ability to socially interact positively with their peers. 

The content of the course can be delivered to young people from 5 to 16 years and is a great way for families to learn some key skills together. 

The Life Skills for Children course has been successfully delivered to thousands of young people with some amazing results. The statistics below, taken from the first 7,000 young people who experienced the course, clearly demonstrate the                                                  fantastic results that are achievable with this course.

- 5,623 kids stated they feel more confident (80%) 
- 6,786 kids felt safer (97%) 
- 6,034 kids had better communication skills (86%) 
- 5,728 kids had better problem solving skills (82%) 
- 6,278 kids could set & achieve goals (90%) 

The course is the heartbeat of the Young People are our Future charity, which delivers the course to young people through schools, special education facilities and behaviour management groups. 

As a preventative measures course, Life Skills for Children will help young people who: Are being bullied, Have poor communication skills, Lack confidence, Lack self-esteem, Have behaviour issues, Have no motivation or drive. 

This course is a great addition to any parent or teacher who wants to provide their children with some real life skills that will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

What a great 1st YEAR Thank you to everyone involved with the charity It has been just over one year since the Young People are our Future charity was born and what a great year it has been. The Life Skills for Children course has been successfully delivered to 8,102 young people, over 100 families have participated in the family forum sessions, 19 mentoring courses have been completed and over 40 activity workshops have been run all over the city of Milton Keynes. Community Activities The charity has run a number of FREE events for young people including sport, dance, drama, first aid and self-defence. A massive thank you to the event tutors, your contribution has been fantastic. We are currently looking for event tutors to assist us in 2014. Click here to find out more information Schools We have managed to interact with a lot of young people within their schools. The Life Skills course has been delivered through the PSHE curriculum. We have developed a school partnership scheme, which has been joined by several local schools. Our school work has enabled us to interact with parents and provide some successful family forum sessions. Schools on board include: St Monica's, Stantonbury Campus, Jubilee Wood, Shenley Brook End, Hanslope Primary and Summerfield. Mentoring Courses Designed as a behaviour modification course, the mentoring course has been delivered to over 300 young people. The mentoring course has been delivered in primary and secondary schools,and Pupil Referral Units The Team A huge thank you to all of those team members who made this year a great success, especially Destine, Michelle, Tony, Kam, Chris, Andy, Peter, Hannah, Josh, Samuel, Lewis, Aliyah, Milan, Sam, Harry.

Click the logo and help us raise money to put the next 8,000 young people through the life skills course.

Why do we wait for the horse to bolt before we lock the gate

As I reflect on yet another successful delivery of the life skills course, I find myself once again asking the question, why do so many parents wait for something traumatic to happen before they are forced to educate their children in the skills required to keep them safe?

Nearly 40 minutes of today’s two hour session was dedicated to an 11 year old boy who has been the victim to a series of bullying incidents that could so easily have been prevented. His parents were outraged at the lack of support they received from their sons school prior the summer holidays and yet they were unintentionally adding fuel to the situation by creating additional trauma to the young boy.

Most of us are guilty of waiting for the final payment letter to drop through the letterbox before we react, or leave it to the final minute before making our way to a meeting that we really do not want to attend. There has to be a point where we say to ourselves, this is too important to just leave and hope it goes away.

Over a 25 year career I have witnessed thousands of examples of people who have just left it to late and have unfortunately paid the consequences.

Women I have worked with in refuges who for numerous reasons have found it difficult to leave their violent partners only to feel the full force of their anger.

Men who work in a dangerous industry and yet have a belief system that nothing BAD is every going to happen to them until their lives are put in danger.

Parents who think there children will stroll through life without ever facing hurdles such as bullying until the child breaks their silence through a social network site or conversation with a friend.

Despite the sometimes horrific stories we hear via the news or depicted in movies, we all to often programme ourselves to say it will never happen to us. When it does, we spend the next few weeks and months asking WHY?

In many ways the most difficult part of my job over the years has been to let people who have become victims to violence, know that the trauma they have experienced could have been reduced and in many cases completely avoided.

Of course this trauma often leads to a number of long term negative personality traits such as low confidence, self-esteem, poor communication skills and mindset, so waiting for something to happen before we react, can and often does devastate lives.

I have a number of friends within the personal safety industry across the world who regularly tell me stories of people that have attended their classes after a violent episode in the lives. Teaching these individuals some practical and simple safety skills becomes a much larger task when you are faced with a series of psychological hurdles.

For me, this demonstrates that this issues of waiting until the horse has bolted before locking the gate is not restricted to a demographic location, nor is it restricted to a specific culture, religion and skin colour.

Human beings everywhere have and continue to programme their brains to assume nothing will happen to either themselves or their children.

The cost of rehabilitating victims of violence in this country alone runs into billions of pounds, and it is only going to get worse as we spend more time indulging in technology that on one had reduces the opportunities for us to socially interact with others and on the other hand encourages us through games to kill each other and live out our violent fantasies in the comfort of our bedrooms.

Whilst in the process of networking locally, I was amazed at the number of support groups that had been set up in Milton Keynes to provide guidance to people after an incident had occurred.

Some of these groups provide a fantastic service, however it seems to me many of these groups are fueling this silly thought process of waiting to late by presenting an image to potential clients that they will be there to mop up the pieces when it goes wrong.

Every course I have written and deployed has been about preventative measures training. Educating people in the skills to assess and avoid a potentially dangerous situation before it happens makes so much sense. I realise that this is not always possible, but by providing people with a set of skills to prepare them to reduce the amount of physical damage they might endure will in turn reduce the amount of trauma they suffer.

The long term benefits of having a society driven by preventative measures initiatives instead of trauma mop us services, will save the tax payer millions of pounds and more importantly will result in a faster rehabilitation process for those still unfortunate enough to experience some level of confrontation.

The Young People are our Future charity provides young people and their families with a preventative measures life skills course.

Show your support for providing people with the right skills before it is too late by liking the charities face book page. 

https://www.facebook.com/YoungPeopleAreOurFuture

Check out the website: www.youngpeopleareourfuture.org 

Article written by Gary Payne

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