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The Wellbeing Pathway seeks to outline how we might invest in young people’s physical, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing in a range of contexts and settings. It was developed as a way of thinking through where we might have first contact with young people and how we might then promote positive wellbeing, build healthy relationships, and share the love of Jesus. All within our Open House Wellbeing values.
The pathway involves the following:
- Mentoring – This is the first step on the pathway which involves working in schools to build relationships of trust and invest in young people’s wellbeing. Very often this will be a first point of contact with a young person. You can find out more about our Mentoring programme here.
- Drop In – In the second part of the pathway we seek to develop safe spaces for young people to hang out and build relationships outside of the school or home environment. This happens through open access Drop Ins. These spaces allow space for conversation to grow and also present opportunities for early intervention and to signpost young people to other service providers to gain help and support. We currently run and support a number of these spaces across the city and surrounding areas.
- Workshop – Next, we have workshops which aim to develop life skills, build self-esteem and create meaningful community. Young people can sign up to a specific 6-week workshop with a small number of other young people. There are a variety of courses and ideas including wellbeing discussion groups, fluid acrylic art wellbeing, bike maintenance, jewellery making, cooking, ceramics and more.
- Faith Exploration – In everything we do we are motivated by our Christian Faith and so we want to give young people opportunities to learn about and explore the Christian faith. Every young person is welcome to join these spaces and groups regardless of their background, culture, or faith. Alongside being able to hear and discover more about the Christian faith in a creative way, young people are encouraged to share their own opinions, have their say and ask questions, no matter how challenging or controversial!
- Discipleship Community – If young people make a choice to follow Jesus, we want to help them connect into Christian community and begin a discipleship journey. We want to both create new spaces and plug young people into local youth groups and churches that have a sense of belonging and commitment to grow in faith.
Our dream is that at every stage of the pathway, we would be working with local churches to deliver the projects and support young people in building connections with Christian communities in their area.
