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June podcast
 June podcast
Walsall Street Teams, Caldmore, Walsall
2009 is Church Urban Fund's 21st anniversary year. Throughout the year, we will be looking back at some of the work that CUF has supported since its foundation.
This month's podcast features Walsall Street Teams (WST), which is currently being funded by CUF.
Listen to the June podcast (MP3 file, 8.3 MB)
Walsall Street Teams (WST) initially started as an outreach to women working as prostitutes in the Caldmore area of Walsall, offering advice and support in parallel with Safe, an NHS-run sexual health and drug programme. Once Safe was well-established, WST took the decision to focus on helping the younger girls, and was supported by grant funding from Children in Need, Henry Smith's Charity, and Church Urban Fund to develop work specifically for under 18s.
The area of work is difficult, not least because of the young age of some of the victims (the project works with girls as young as 10 or 12), and the hidden nature of the issue. Between April 2007 and March 2008, WST saw 81 young women from across the borough; the 2008-9 number is expected to rise as more care and education professionals become aware of the issue, and learn to recognise the signs in the young people involved.
Many of the young people WST works with are in care, absent from education, or in difficult family situations. The lack of positive role models, self confidence, and emotional stability in their lives leaves them vulnerable to negative peer pressure, offending, and to forming unhealthy relationships. However, sexual exploitation can affect young people from any social background - children who lack awareness and understanding around unsafe relationships are equally at risk.
WST currently runs four different projects aimed at different areas of need: Jigsaw offers one-to-one assessment and a 10-week workshop course for girls who have been, or who are at risk of being sexually exploited; Solomon, is a training and prevention course for year 6, 7 and 8 pupils in schools, youth clubs and care homes, which teaches about internet safety and making wise choices in relationships; Nehemiah is a programme of individual sessions and workshops for boys who are at risk of offending or exclusion from school, and the new MARS project is aimed at supporting young men who are at risk of sexual exploitation, and who struggle with issues of identity, self-esteem and emotional trauma. Each programme aims to develop the young people's confidence and self-respect, enabling them to make their own choices and avoid being lead into dangerous behaviour by others.
Molly's story
Molly is 14. She's been sexually active since she was just 12, and spends a lot of time hanging around with a gang of older lads. Excluded from school for abusive behaviour, Molly has juvenile convictions for ABH and theft. She also admits to having no respect for anyone, to drinking on the street, and smoking cannabis on a daily basis. Molly is sexually promiscuous, and sleeps with people in return for drugs and alcohol. She regularly runs away.
Molly hasn't opened up much during the Jigsaw workshop sessions, but she attends regularly and is happy to take part. She has low self-esteem, and can't understand why the staff care about her, and she says she expects her life will be spent "on the dole, smoking weed." She says she can't do anything and doesn't have anything to hope for, but she does admit that she wouldn't mind doing childcare, so she could look after children from difficult backgrounds.
WST are working with Molly to help her reduce the level of risk in her life, and help her discover her hopes and dreams.
Molly's story is taken from WST's Annual Report, 2008
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Denis Perkins, the Diocesan Link Officer for the Lichfield diocese, took me to visit the Caldmore and Pleck areas of Walsall where WST is based, and introduced me to Theresa and Sarah (photographed above, with Theresa on the left) who work at the project. Theresa explained that many girls arrive on the workshop course unable to take part in group work - for those who have been out of formal education for a long period, and isolated or manipulated by a controlling adult, attending a regular series of sessions is a major challenge; success for some may simply be that they complete the course. The Jigsaw workshops sessions on sexual health, drug and alcohol awareness and anti-social behaviour, and therapeutic elements such as cookery and art - the balance is important in providing space for debate and questions, but also time for the girls to reflect and to disclose their experiences to staff.
WST has developed a strong reputation as a service provider, and is supported by the local authority, the NHS and the police. Unlike other statutory agencies though, the Christian faith is central to its work - staff are able to pray with and for the young women and men they work with, and support each other through prayer.
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