This week we have invited our colleagues at Sefton Care Leavers' Centre to share their weekly happenings with us to give you some insight into their progress as they set up this new project.  The project was funded through The Big Lottery with extra help from Sefton MBC Community Fund and Youth Work Grants.  This new project is managed by Venus and we work in partnership with a steering group consisting of Sefton MBC, Sefton CVS, Parenting 2000 and care leavers.  The Centre has been established with the aims of:

• supporting young people in care to think about and plan for their leaving care, and
• supporting young people who have left care to maintain their independence and achieve their aspirations.

So, without further ado, let me introduce you to Stef, our Apprentice Reception/Admin Worker at Sefton Care Leavers' Centre who is going to take us through this week with the Team...

"This week the team has been super busy getting things ready to move into our big new centre in about a fortnight’s time.  On Monday, we started choosing colours to make our building bright and welcoming when you come in. Plus, we’re looking for volunteers to help us paint and to make it your own!

We’ve developed our Confidence Building and Parenting courses this week too, making sure we have all the best information and guidance to give you. We’ll be starting to deliver these in the next few weeks so if you want to know more or if you fancy joining in, pop in and see us or give us a call on either 07985212751 or 07932433010!

On Tuesday, David and Paula both went on training to learn how to use the Outcome Star sheets, which we can use to help track your progress during your time with us and, most importantly, can make it easier for you to tell us about the help you need.

Thursday, the team went to Parenting 2000’s fun day at Kirkstone Park along with many other services from around Sefton. We had a table full of sweets (for all of five minutes!) and flyers to give out to people to let them know who we are and what we do. We got a lot of networking done and it was a lovely day getting to know lots of new faces, even with the terrible weather!

Next week we’ll hopefully have our courses up and running and next time we’ll have a proper update about our new centre!"

Thanks Stef, sounds like the Centre is coming together nicely there!  You can meet the Team at SCLC any Thursday afternoon between 2pm - 5pm, here's a picture of the team, from left to right, they are Jo, Stef, Paula and David.