Positive feedback from the YMCA

'Just before Christmas I decided to show my senior youth club here at the YMCA, Taunton the awareness video that has recently been launched by Stand Against Violence. In all honesty I wasn’t really sure what to expect, even though I had seen the video and found it very moving, I didn’t think I would have such a strong reaction as I did form the young people I showed it to. The only reaction I really expected was for them to be quiet as it was quite an emotive piece, but I was mistaken. Originally I invited a local PCSO to come along and watch it with us, so that we could have an open discussion about the issues that were raised in the video- but due to work commitments he was unable to make the showing. Inviting the PCSO along in a fairly informal setting I thought would encourage young people to talk to him about violence and the issues around it.

As soon as the video came to an end you could visibly see that the young people in the room were moved by the video. All of the young people in the room had come from a variety of backgrounds and each one of them become deeply involved in an open discussion about violence with myself, Adam and Cllr Nicci Court. What surprised me the most was that the two quietest in the group spoke the most about how they thought differently about getting into fights. They talked about how they never think about the repercussions of their fights, how they just get caught in the moment- not thinking about the after affect. As the attackers in the video were under the influence of alcohol we also talked at length about alcohol. Some of the young people revealed about how easy it was to get hold of alcohol and drugs at school. What I found most interesting was that the young people really felt that PCSOs and the police in general didn’t do enough. One young person talked about how he was taken home by a PCSO for displaying anti-social behaviour and after a few minutes he just went back out again. I am not entirely sure if they would have discussed this if the local PCSO was present, but nonetheless it was an insightful discussion. When the discussion drew to a close I soon noticed that an hour had passed since we first had shown the video. We had been deep in discussion for all that time, which just goes to prove how powerful this video was. As we only had half an hour of youth club left some of the young people were still talking about the video and how they would like to do role play. They also requested if they could have wrist bands (one of which Adam Fouracre was wearing), in aid of the campaign and of course Lloyd.

With all the youth work I have done around social issues, this was the most powerful and effective piece of stimulus for all the young people.'