Debra's Blog
Debra Green's latest update on Redeeming Our Communities
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Official launch of ROC Café Radcliffe
| On Thursday 2nd February we held the official launch of the ROC Café in Radcliffe, Manchester. This project is 1 of the 6 ROC Café youth clubs which are now open in Manchester. It was so exciting to attend the launch event along with Ivan Lewis MP, the Lady Mayor, Bishop Chris Edmondson, Chief Superintendent Jon Rush, local Police officers, fire service and Council members, local church members many of whom volunteer at the project and lots of young people. |
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One member of the ROC Café team had made a lovely cake with the ROC logo, as well as lots of individual cakes in rainbow colours. We heard several speeches including one from a girl called Zoe who attends the Café, she said it was fun and she had made new friends. During the speeches members of the fire service from Whitefield played pool with the kids. Chief Superintendent Rush said that he did not have a youth club like this one when he was growing up on the streets of Salford.
Louise Williams said: “Our ROC Café is for high school pupils (ages 11-16) and runs on Thursday evenings from 6:30-9pm. We have been open for 5 weeks and have seen numbers increase every week, with 26 young people now registered. Alongside ROC Café we run ROC Football with Radcliffe Neighbourhood Policing Team (NPT) at Radcliffe Borough FC. This is a 5-a-side football activity again for the 11-16’s. This project started on 6th Jan 2012 and is funded from the GMP Proceeds of Crime Fund for 52 weeks. Last Friday night 45 young people attended. The team hope that these 2 activities on consecutive evenings will have a positive impact both in the lives of the young people but also help to reduce the youth crime and ASB in the area.”
The ROC Café in Radcliffe is part of a full-time ROC Centre which hosts a daily Police Surgery with Radcliffe NPT as well as a wide variety of other groups including a community lunch and bingo club, drama academy, Adult Learning Difficulties and Disabilities team and a Youth Church. They are working with a range of partners including St Andrew’s Church, Radcliffe Churches Together, GMP and Bury MBC.
The ROC Centre has already had visitors from far and wide including Northern Ireland and will have an Open Day/official launch in the summer.
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Hope and a Future for Young People
The results of the first 3 ROC Café youth projects have shown a reduction in anti-social behaviour of between 35% and 55%. This strategy works and we are seeking to plant these youth projects across the UK. Recent research has also prompted us to develop a ROC Mentors scheme which will be piloted in London later this year.
The vast majority of young people in our society are law abiding, however, a significant minority come to the notice of police and the Criminal Justice System (CJS) every year. The below statistics make sobering reading:
- 70,000 school age children enter the CJS every year.
- Nearly half (42%) of all first time offenders are young adults
- The number of 15-17 yr. olds in youth custody has more than doubled in the last 10 years
- Two thirds of those imprisoned lose their jobs, a third lose their homes and 40% lose contact with their families
- The reoffending rate amongst those 18-20 yrs. old released from short term prison sentences (12 months or less) is 92%
Apart from the human cost, the amount of money spent in relation to dealing with young offenders is staggering. The total cost to the Criminal Justice system is estimated at approximately £4 billion per year.*
We at ROC are working hard to ensure that young people are given a hope and a future.
* www.civitas.org.uk/crime/factsheet-YouthOffending.pdf
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Year of the Olympics
I've been thinking about this being the year of the Olympics and how each one of us is called to run the race of life. Paula Radcliffe, the Marathan world record holder, was running once in the Athens Olympics in 2004 when she collapsed exhausted by the roadside three miles from the finishing line. Do you sometimes feel like that? I know I do. Paula's family, and husband picked her up and took her to hospital. She recovered to run again.
This is a year when we have the opportunity to serve our communities, despite the way we may feel: disqualified, tired, weary, apathetic, or even I can't be bothered! Let's get up and run again.
We at ROC have just come back from an amazing trip to Glasgow. Meeting there with the Police, church leaders and people who all want communities to thrive. ROC Scotland is on its way and I am so excited. They want to tartanise the logo...can't wait to see that! One of the big challenges we face is re-thinking what the church has to offer. Let's try to be open minded and try some new things. If that doesn't work we'll go back to what wasn't working before, as I once heard said by Pastor Dary Northrop from Timberline Church in the States. A bit tongue in cheek but let's face it not all our church projects have worked otherwise we'd be a lot further on than we are.
Following the trip to Glasgow, the week got even better: on Friday I was honoured to spend the whole morning with Wendy Beech-Ward, Director of Spring Harvest. We were doing quite a lot of dreaming about what could be! Spring Harvest is taking a bold theme this year; Church Actually..what could we do if we really seek to get our heads and hearts in gear?
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Jennie Cloherty, 24/01/2012 |
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