Key Facts
Location
Project Criteria
Project funding
£80,654
Funding round
SOVA works to strengthen communities and reduce crime by working with individuals from local communities to support and motivate those who are at risk of becoming socially excluded. We do this by recruiting, training and supporting volunteers who provide mentoring and other support services to individuals and groups. For example: young people excluded from the education system, care leavers facing the transition to adulthood without the traditional support of a family and young people who become parents at an early age. We are a charity set up in 1975.
Using the Parenting Fund, we will develop a service in North Lincolnshire to encompass the needs of disadvantaged young people (teenage - 25 years old), who are shortly to become, or are already, parents. Through the project, we want to increase the confidence, motivation and self-esteem of young parents so that they can deal with the life changes demanded by the arrival of a new baby.
The project will provide a peer mentoring programme by training young people locally to take on this role. In addition, volunteers will be recruited to provide extra skills and support. We will develop an informal guidance service and provide access to specialist agencies. The project will facilitate sessions where young people will be encouraged to consider what they can do about:
- contraception
- health matters
- managing on a budget
- how to prepare healthy meals
- help with basic skills needs.
We will work closely with Children's Services, The Youth Offending Team, The Prince's Trust, Connexions and all relevant agencies in the Health and Social Care sectors. The Peer Mentoring course will be accredited by The Open College Network, as are the training courses available to all SOVA volunteers.