City farms provide a unique learning environment for urban young people to develop practical skills. Tim Burke mucks in to see what the fuss is about.

The boy can't be more than 12 years old. He looks a bit shy, but then he sees me cautiously eyeing up a goat. "Would you like to feed it?" he says encouragingly. "Here's some food - don't worry, just put your hand out like this. That's right - can you feel his tongue?"

That's the kind of magic that happens on a city farm. They offer access not just to cute fluffy animals but to a safe and dynamic learning environment that can be mightily effective in developing young people's self-confidence and social and communication skills.

The above encounter took place at Gorse Hill City Farm in Leicester, one of 48 city farms in the UK. Along with hundreds of smaller community gardens, they employ the equivalent of about 500 full-time staff and have about 15,000 volunteers.

Sarah Crookall, education officer at Gorse Hill, stresses that all kinds of young people are keen to volunteer at the farm but agrees there can be a remarkable impact on some of the more hard-to-reach young people.

"Animals bring out the best in people and the kids naturally want to help them," she explains. "We find that young people who show no emotion for anyone else want to care for animals, and in the long run they can transfer some of that back into the rest of their lives." She adds: "It helps them socially and at school. I've seen kids who have never done homework or writing at all and after a week here have gone in with an essay about what they did."

Ben Cheetham, project manager at Deen City Farm in Merton, south London, says: "Young people can express emotion to animals more easily than to people. It's an informal but active environment that gives an element of routine that might be missing in their lives."

Meanwood Valley Urban Farm in Leeds runs a Neighbourhood Support Fund project called ReConnect. This uses the environment of the farm to build confidence among underachieving 13- to 16-year-olds referred by learning mentors and Connexions personal advisers.

Range of activities

Farm director Sue Reddington says: "They respond because they get the chance to work in small groups and take part in creative activities. It's not just about animals. We might have them working on drawings with an artist, learning woodworking skills or learning about the environment through a recycling project." Attendance is good, feedback from partners is positive, and the project has been given more funding in the second round of Neighbourhood Support Fund grants.

Leicester's Gorse Hill City Farm is located near to disadvantaged areas such as Beaumont Leys, where unemployment, lone-parent families and poverty are all 50 per cent higher than the city average. The farm very much fits the bill of a safe haven. It offers local people plots in the community garden and access to a range of animals including dexter cows, rabbits and guinea pigs, ornamental fowl including cochins and silkies and a selection of rare-breed pigs, sheep and cattle for a breeding programme.

The farm gives opportunities to keen young volunteers from across the city such as Tom Chambers, 14 (pictured above), who has been a volunteer since he was 10. Tom is at the farm most weekends and often from 10 until five during the school holidays. "At first it was just mucking out and being introduced to the animals. The longer I've been coming the more jobs I've been given, like painting. But what keeps me coming is the animals."

Tom, who now harbours ambitions to be a vet, also highlights the special quality of staff relationships: "The staff here are great, they join in with everything. I'd rather come here than be at school."

Schools do visit the farm. "There's a big educational job to be done," says Crookall. "Ask young people where eggs come from and a lot of them can only answer Asda." It also takes young people on one- or two-week work experience placements and works with young people from pupil referral units. "Many of them have no social skills," says Crookall. "Normally they won't talk much, but here they're soon asking questions. It's good for them to be helping out, to find themselves serving a purpose."

Similarly, the local youth offending team is alert to the potential of the farm and has negotiated placements for young people with a reparation order or who are fulfilling community service.

Good feedback

The Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens has conducted research into farms' work with socially excluded young people. The Making Connexions project report included extended case studies of Rice Lane City Farm in Liverpool and Kentish Town City Farm in Camden. It confirmed that they were successfully reaching socially excluded young people, both through regular volunteering programmes and more structured involvement such as New Deal placements and mentoring programmes for young people at risk of dropping out of school.

A key reason for the success of these farms was the fact that they were perceived as community-owned organisations that were there for the long term. They have both been around since the 1970s and are not seen as just another quick-fix scheme. The research found that young people responded because they were treated like adults and there was an ethos that they would be trusted until they messed up, the opposite of their experience with schools and other agencies.

Crucially, the learning style is active and physical. One young man comments in the research: "At Rice Lane you are on the go all the time and the only time you sit down is in the breaks. At school that is the only time you stand up." Other benefits included the potential for peer education, while for some young refugees the farm was a reminder of home in a strange and often threatening new environment.

A soft option?

Despite the obvious potential, many farms experience difficulties in being taken seriously by the educational establishment. Farms report being seen as a sympathetic local employer rather than a community education partner.

There is a resulting catch in that the more they struggle to get genuine partnership - and that of course implies a share of funding - the more farms are forced to look at formalised and accredited courses. This risks changing the nature of the relationship with the community, a not unfamiliar issue for youth workers.

The Making Connexions research also expressed some concern that with few career opportunities linked to animal care, too great an emphasis on vocational outcomes risked raising young people's expectations that there would be a job for them.

At Gorse Hill, the staff tell volunteers that qualifications are great but that it is practical experience that may give them the edge when it comes to getting into college or jobs.

"Working here is a stepping stone to everything," says Crookall. "It develops responsibility, basic skills, communication skills and skills for life such as customer care. There are always a lot of adult visitors around asking questions and the kids are keen to be helpful. The skills they learn can be transferred to whatever else they end up doing."

DEEN PROVIDES A SAFE HAVEN

"For us it's a godsend - the farm is a magical place," says Emma Richards, of Merton Youth Offending Team, about Deen City Farm in south London. Over the past year she has worked with the farm on a project for young people from the youth inclusion support panel, an initiative for eight- to 13-year-olds at risk of involvement in crime.

Working with farm trustee Penny Leslie, Richards helped set up an eight-week arts scheme involving an introduction to the farm and the making of ceramic tiles to decorate a planter in the farm's sensory garden. She says: "Doing something for the benefit of the community was important to them in developing some self-esteem."

Home from home

This has led to Farm Fantastic, a variety of arts and volunteering projects on the farm that is also motivating young people as volunteers.

"Young people adore the animals," says Richards. "Some come from large families where they may not be getting a lot of support and here they are able to build relationships with animals - it's very, very useful for building self-confidence."

The peaceful environment of the farm in contrast to the streets outside plays a big part. "There's a calmness, a sense of security," says Richards. "For some, it is more of a home than their own home."

EMILY'S STORY

Emily Doyle, 17 (far left), has been a volunteer for three years at Gorse Hill. The experience she has gained, along with a reference, was vital in getting her into Brooksby Agricultural College in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, where she is taking a National Diploma in Animal Management. This is a two-year course with modules including animal health, care and welfare of farm livestock, practical handling and husbandry, and ecology and conservation. It also includes 12 weeks of work experience.

"If it wasn't for the farm, I'd be struggling to find any contact with animals," says Emily, from the tough New Parks district of Leicester in the northwest of the city. "Many volunteers are in the same situation - we want to work with animals but can't because of where we live.

"It's given me much more confidence at school and college. People laugh when you say you work on a farm, they think it's all about shovelling pooh - they don't realise it's so much fun. The staff are not like teachers, they're more like friends. It's really peaceful here; it's not a bit like where I live. You feel safe here and meet a great variety of people."