Participation in Action: Sussex teenagers highlight importance of everyday skills

Provider West Sussex County Council and National Citizen Service

Name Lessons4Life

During this year's summer programme for the National Citizen Service (NCS), a group of 16- and 17-year-olds from West Sussex discussed issues facing young people in the Chichester area.

They identified that many of the skills young people need when leaving home to live independently are not taught as part of the school national curriculum, which can lead to some of them struggling to carry out simple, everyday tasks. These included domestic chores such as washing up and ironing clothes, changing a plug, first aid, talking on the phone to professionals, and how to budget, explains Claire Tooke, of West Sussex County Council's young people's service.

The group's answer to this was to set up "Lessons4Life", a campaign to raise awareness and teach young people new life skills.

At the beginning of the campaign the group carried out a survey of young people across the district, which revealed that 93 per cent of young people did not understand what a mortgage was.

Tooke says that this pushed the young people to create a short online video designed to highlight the "horrors" of not doing certain life skills well, such as cooking, ironing and basic electrics.

However, the young people realised that a video was not enough, so as part of the 30 hours of social action done through the NCS, the group decided they would try to teach and inform young people face-to-face.

They began by identifying what skills young people were lacking, and then learned more about these by talking to different organisations. This included visiting Barclays Bank to understand how mortgages work. The group then took to the streets to raise awareness and teach other young people new life skills.

"The group visited sites across Chichester, where they demonstrated the skills they had learned and talked to parents and young people about the campaign to spread the word," explains Tooke.

"They have physically interacted with approximately 100 people and there have been hundreds more through social media with 411 views of their video and campaign on Facebook.

"They have been taking the campaign message to the local media, to local MPs and they met with the Mayor of Chichester in August to get his support."

She says the NCS group decided to contact decision makers so they could raise awareness of the campaign and look at how a lack of life skills can be addressed for all young people.

The campaign has also provided the NCS group and campaign participants with a wealth of benefits. Participants of Lessons4Life have gained valuable knowledge and are now able to perform tasks that they would not have been able to do in the past, which has enhanced their confidence.

Meanwhile the NCS group has increased their own resilience, readiness for work, developed personal life skills and raised their aspirations.

Luenna Van Heerd, who is a part of the Lessons4Life campaign group, says: "We recognised a large concern around teenagers and their education - the lack of life skills taught at school and the inability to carry out simple tasks such as changing a fuse or light bulb.

"Through our campaign we want to raise awareness and make sure as many people as possible can learn the skills they need for everyday life."

Tooke says the young people plan to develop their campaign further by linking in with the West Sussex Youth Cabinet even though the NCS summer programme has finished.

More from: www.facebook.com/lessons4life2016/