RESIDENTIAL REPORT

July 7 – 8 2012

Danywenallt Youth Hostel

Agenda

Friday 6th July

7.30pm EVENING MEAL

9.00pm Introductions. Kerry meets the forum

9.30pm UNCRC – Due regard

“Your health Your Rights”

Individual feedback

Saturday 7th July

8am BREAKFAST

9.00am Introduction to “Mindfulness”

10.00am Session 1 – Puppy Training

11.00am Session 2 – Turning Towards Calm

12.15-1.30 LUNCH

1.30pm Session 3 – Recognising Worry

3.00pm Linda Gutierrez – What do young people need?

5.00pm Session 4 – Being Here Now

6.00pm DINNER

7.30pm Session 5 – Moving Mindfully

Sunday 8th July

8.30am BREAKFAST

9.30am Session 6 – Stepping Back

11.00am Session 7 – Befriending the Difficult

12.00-1.00 LUNCH

1.00pm CYPP questions and meeting preparation

2.00pm Youth Service Review

3.00pm HOME

This does not look like a normal residential for the Powys Youth Forum!! They are normally

alert and listening to Janet and Steve. There seems to be a lot of relaxing and not a lot of

listening going on. Are they Mindful of their busy agenda? – What has happened?

? ?

AHA – Its MINDFULNESS TRAINING !

The evening started late as we were travelling to the remote corners of rural south Powys.

The last of the up north young people arrived just in time to eat dinner at about 7.45pm.

We were at a new venue and you could sense the anticipation. Elan Valley Lodge has set the

bar very high in providing the top class environment that the hard working members of the

forum deserve for the amount of work they complete. Will Danywenallt succeed?

The first test was dinner and we all agreed that it was excellent – phew!

After exploring our rooms we all gathered in the communal area to say our hello’s and go

over the rules for the hostel and the residential itself:-

1. Wash up spoons, mugs and clean up kitchen.

2. Bedtime – quiet in building from 11pm and sleepy time at 12pm

3. No climbing through windows

4. No drugs and alcohol

5. Respect each other

6. Listen when others are talking

Introductions

Staff - Janet, Steve and Kerry, (who is delivering the Mindfulness training this weekend.)

She introduced herself and the basics of what is to come!

Young People –

• Twill – Brecon High School

• Freyer – Young Carers, Llanfyllin

• Sam – Wrexham University

• Jack – John Beddoes ?

• Ellie – Welshpool High School

• Lucia – Gwernyfed High School

• Caitlin – Crickhowell

• Bobby – Welshpool IT business

• Haz – Brecon

• Ieuan – Llanfyllin High School / Young Carers

• Ben – Ystradgynlais

• Heledd – Welshpool High School

• Sian – Swansea University

• Adam - Welshpool

1. UNCRC – Welsh Government has issued a statement that all organisations working with, or involved with young people have to show “Due Regard” to the UNCRC. The

forum looked through a handout of the section of the report that they had

previously worked on. Click on the link to see the full report and the Powys section on pages 50 – 56.

C:\Documents and Settings\stephep1\Desktop\CYPP\Mindfulness\Children's Scheme young people Consultation report.pdf

2. Your Health Your Rights – Save the Children have produced a leaflet about adhering to Article 42 of the Children’s Rights Act and the forum were asked to

distribute these over the coming months.

3. Individual Feedback

Twill – His role with the Community Partnership for Alcohol awareness has

just finished and just as he was getting to understand the role. Twill has also

finished High School but feels a little let down as he has received no

recognition of the hard work he has put in in representing the school on the

forum and in a number of other extra curricular roles. ACTION – A letter

needs to be written to the school explaining the situation.

Sam – Sam is heading off to Wrexham University and this is his last official

residential. A member from the beginning who has taught me much in my first

few months and someone who has had a very positive impact on the lives of

many young people as well as be a driving force for change amongst the many

organisations and there consultations that he has worked on. Good luck in Uni

and come and visit often!

Ellie – The rainbow school has almost completed its online assessment and

Ellie has been asked to attend a governors meeting to explain the process and

the value of the eventual kitemark.

Ellie has also recently had a day in court where she played the role of

prosecutor and Heledd was the witness. She enjoyed the feeling of power.

Lucia – Exams are over, hurray! Soon be time to prepare for A levels. Anxious

about results day but we are all confident that Lucia has done well.

Haz – School is over, hurray! Haz is hoping to get in to Swansea Uni and

apologised for her physical state this weekend as she is recovering from a

broken toe and has just had an operation her arm. She is walking like a robot

for the weekend but deserves a medal just for turning up.

Spud – has spent the last 3 years working as a maintenance engineer and has

just finished year 2 in Wrexham with distinctions. Well done that man.

Bobby – Work has been very busy and careers Wales are getting involved with

work experience opportunities. Bobby has also had two new members of staff

that he had to interview. He found the experience strange but really

enjoyable. It’s exciting being young and working with young fresh people. The

programmers at Bobby’s work are all self taught and he is hoping to pioneer a

program of improving IT skill development in school – teach people to program

not just do spreadsheets. Keep it up Bobby.

Freyer – Completed the fundraising walk around lake Vyrnwy and raised nearly

£1000. Freyer is planning a promise auction in September so watch this space.

Jack – Jack and his sister recently carried the Olympic torch. An amazing

and nerve racking experience. There are now a lot of pictures of jack carrying

the torch over the Welsh bridge.

Ieuan – The grant for the Swedish exchange has been accepted and Ieuan is

off to Sweden on August the 13 – 20. Enjoy yourself Ieuan.

It was already nearly midnight by now so it was off to bed for all of us – Will the

beds be a nice as Elan Valley ?

Saturday The morning started well with an excellent breakfast, so excellent that 3 young people

were late for the first session and had to complete an infamous “Death By”. For Sam it

was by Kitten, for Bobby it was by Squirrel and for Twill it was by bacon !

Embarrassments over – lets start the training!

Michelle joined us this morning and Kerri took the reins!

4. Introduction to Mindfulness

And to .b

So know we all have a clearer picture of what Mindfulness is! – At this point everyone

decided to continue with the training and no one had been scared off!

5. Session 1 – Puppy Training

An all round very good response to this session. It made Sian feel a little car sick and

Ellie wondered if these techniques would work on Christmas eve!

The whole group agreed that the 15 minute exercise felt like 4 minutes.

6. Session 2 – Turning Towards Calm

We should all be with our minds as David Attenborough is with animals – curious, patient

and kind. Very good advice for all of us and we also practiced the FOFBOC (Feet On

Floor Bums On Chairs) technique of grounding meditation. Everyone found the process

very relaxing and as usual, all the forum members made a real effort to try out what to

some is a very new and strange experience.

We all stopped for a very relaxed packed lunch in the garden.

7. Session 3 – Recognising Worry

Refreshed and ready to go – everyone was very keen to continue – well done Kerry

although we had to deal with another three “Death Bys” before we started. Janet,

Michelle and Kerry. Michelle’s was death by Mountain Bike, Kerry’s was Death by

Mindfulness and Janet’s was death by Tic Toc which is one of Sam’s favourite team

building games. All three were excellent and the Mindfulness training was already

taking effect because the Tic Toc kept going for ages!!

On with the training

Wow, this stuff is relaxing – the whole group wants to continue Beditation fro the

rest of the day! During this session we were encouraged to become aware of the two

modes of our minds. The Thinking and the Sensing. We talked about how worry is like

rumination, (a cows digestion) and how we digest it over and over again creating a

cycle of worry. Techniques like Beditation are ways to break this cycle and

encourage the Sensing side of our brains to take over from the overactive Thinking

side.

8. Linda Gutierrez

We had a break from the training to do a workshop with Linda. Linda works with the

Youth Intervention Service in the South of the county and talked about how herself

and Kerri are trained in Mindfulness and they use it as one of their intervention

techniques with the young people, and their families, that they work with. They also

use the Friends program which helps young people and their families deal with the

transition stages in live for example Primary to High school or leaving school at 16.

The main reason for Linda’s visit was to gather feedback for the Youth Intervention

Service Participation Strategy from the forum members on the question, “What is it

that young people need?” The question looks at what sort of help or interventions

are needed throughout the life of a young person. We split into two groups with one

looking at over 16 and the other looking at under 16. The results were, as usual for

this forum group, very thorough and threw up a number of interesting discussions

about support, advice, relevance and quality.

In response to the workshop, Linda fed back that her intention is to ensure that the

forums voice is heard and that the participation Strategy for YIS will reflect this.

Linda will also be writing a report for the senior management team to let them know

where the Youth Intervention Service is failing our young people. Good luck with all

that Linda!

9. CYPP Meeting

The group discussed the upcoming CYPP meeting where they will be feeding back on

the partnership restructure and it was decided that Jack, Twill, Lucia, Spud and

Caitlin would attend the meeting on the 16th July. There would be time at the

beginning of the day on the 16th to go over the agenda before the meeting.

It was then time for another excellent Danywenallt evening meal and a well earned rest for

those overactive brains. They did however decide to do two more evening sessions after

dinner!

10. Session 4 – Being here now Back to work and there were no death bys for this session which can only be a credit

to Kerry or perhaps the fear installed by the previous death bys!

This section looked at how we are often governed by an automatic reaction to a

situation and rarely give ourselves the time to respond to a situation rather than

just react.

The session again went very well and it was very interesting to take time with the

Maltesers. Quite a few people were surprised by how the sensation changed as the

Malteser melted. Of course we all had to try this over and over again just check that

all the Maltesers were the same!

11. Session 5 – Moving Mindfully

Again, a very full and enjoyable session. It was interesting to listen to the body as

it was still. The group also enjoyed the Samurai comparison of getting into the flow.

The best way to find out – go outside and try it! We all went into the garden area

and tried out Mindful walking. It was a relaxing experience until we were invaded by

a million Midges !

Everyone agreed it had been a very enjoyable day and that we all wanted to try out

more Beditation before sleeping later on.

Some people decided to take the sensation of moving mindfully one step further by

heading for the muddy area of the garden without their shoes and socks. A strange

sensation but even stranger photos. A Haribo style price to the person that

identifies the owners of the muddy feet!!

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Be grateful that this is not a scratch and sniff page!

GOOD LUCK!

The previous evening ended with a film in one room for half the group while the other half

spent an hour and a half trying to get a film to play whilst giggling none stop. To quote

Janet, “It was the funniest failure to watch a film I have ever had!??!”

Sunday

It must be the Mindfulness (or the Forums hard work!) that is having an effect because

everyone slept well last night and only had to mention the word Beditation and it sent them

to sleep.

Another excellent breakfast followed by room tidying and we were ready for more

Mindfulness – but of course we had another death by! This time it was Twill and he had

to do a Death By the Zombie Library dream he had had and although he was nervous to

start, it soon became a lesson in acting worthy of an Oscar!! – maybe ☺

12. Session 6 – Stepping Back

It was interesting to see the thought bus comparisons that people had used

before, for example thought clouds. What was important was that you chose an

image that was relevant to your idea of the traffic in your mind and how you can

choose to step back and let some things travel on past and not get on board.

13. Session 7 – Befriending the Difficult

The final session showed us all how to accept stress as a part of our lives but that

we can manage it. How it affects the body and what triggers we get that we are

experiencing stress. The best way to do this is to create a stressful situation so we

can see how our bodies and minds react. So, out came kerry’s box of torture in

which was a shockball. We had to stand in a circle and pass the ball around that

would randomly shock people with greater intensity as it went round. Some people

sensibly opted out from the start and it was not long before the remaining group

became very small. The whole thing brought about some excellent discussion and

emotional feedback.

We were also presented with some interesting facts – We sweat when scared so we

are harder to grab and we empty our bowels when scared so that we can run faster!

The whole group enjoyed the training. It was a new and at times challenging topic that

everyone was able to relate to their own lives in some way or another. We filled out

feedback forms for the training for Kerry and also re visited the self assessments that we

had filled out at the start of the weekend. These two self assessments would be compared

at a later date to see what variations occur.

The group decided that it would be beneficial to have a refresher day at the end of August

to see what effects the training has had on people’s lives.

We all learned a lot over the last couple of days and will all take our homework away with us

and .b each other when the time feels right.

Massive thanks to Kerry for her excellent delivery – Well done!