A group of young people are standing in a circle, with youth worker Sandy Sanghera in the middle. They are playing a game called Paranoia. Each has been given a piece of paper with a number on it. Sandy calls out a couple of numbers and the two people who have them must try to swap places without her stealing one of the available spaces in the process. It is a catalyst for noise, humour and a bit of pushing and shoving. After several rounds, the group debates the meaning of the game.
"No wonder it's called Paranoia - it's horrible," says a young man called Kweku. Others describe feeling exposed and frustrated by trying to read the body language of those around them. Sandy asks: "How is this like conflict?" Fellow youth worker Nia Imani Kuumba interrupts: "How is this like life?"
Shaks, a 20-year-old Asian man who has become a youth worker (see box), argues that it's like two people trying to go for the same job when there's only one space available. Another young person describes how you have to trust your partner to move at the same time. Nia says it's a bit like "slipping" into a rival neighbourhood. At the end of the debrief they applaud each other's efforts and then begin a session of Conflict Machine to show how an everyday street confrontation can escalate.
This is the Quarrelshop, one of the programmes run by the innovative charity Leap Confronting Conflict, which last year worked with 4,000 young people across the country. That number is set to expand after the government awarded the project £3.3m this year. The organisation's website says Leap is so called for the "leap of creativity", the "leap into the unknown" and the "leap of change" that we have to make in confronting conflict. At a time when gang crime is rarely off the front pages of our newspapers, policymakers hope this project will help to address the root causes. The project recognises that minor incidents, such as stepping on someone's foot by accident, can develop into suspicion, violence and gang disputes.
Jennifer Rogers, chief executive of Leap, says the government's investment is "fantastic". With the high number of teenage victims of knife and gun crime, she feels Leap has a "moral responsibility" to spread its innovative approach. She believes the fact that it tackles conflict "head-on" is what attracted the government investment, she says. "One of the questions is always 'how do you get young people to come along?' I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a young person who is not interested in conflict. They're either scared of it, causing it or a natural peacemaker."
Rogers believes changing individuals' ways of thinking about their own behaviour and that of a group can alter the dynamics of a local area afflicted by gang violence or intimidation.
Expansion plans
Quarrelshop is just a small part of the charity's activities. Over the past few years, Leap's volunteer mediation network Peer Link has grown to 1,400 members. It has trained frontline staff in Glasgow to work with gangs and used sports projects across the UK to teach conflict resolution. But the new money offers it a huge opportunity to grow.
The £3.3m will enable the Leap model to be rolled out across schools in Yorkshire and London, a Leap North office to be opened in Leeds this month, and a training academy to operate from both the London and Leeds bases. The project is also set to expand its role as a social enterprise, acting as a consultant to the police and youth groups.
As part of the schools rollout, between four and six secondary schools will be targeted in Keighley, near Bradford in West Yorkshire. The plan is for around 800 pupils to be given one-to two-day sessions in conflict management and for the 20 most enthusiastic participants at each session to be trained over a five-day period to work as peer mediators. Fifty teachers will also be involved, and the Quarrelshop model will be used in deprived estates. The impact on the community will be closely monitored to see if such intensive conflict management provides what Rogers calls a "cascade effect", resulting in fewer gang problems, a better school atmosphere and less fear of crime.
Mark Blake, programme director of social inclusion and crime prevention scheme Positive Futures, is a big fan of Leap's approach. "Anything that includes an element where young people reflect on their actions and think about the consequences has to be good, especially if it uses a restorative justice type of model," he says.
Dispute training
At a house in the east London borough of Newham, a group of young people are about to receive their certificates for completing the Quarrelshop course. Newham is an area where gangs and postcode rivalry are prominent, but these young people feel they have been given a chance to opt out of such disputes.
Janet, 19, is a fashion student who discovered Quarrelshop after taking part in a debate on conflict at her youth centre. A worker there had done the course and recommended it. "I've had a lot of conflict in my life," says Janet. "At school there were a lot of fights - I've been beaten up and also beaten up other people."
She says she was pleasantly surprised by the practical approach of the Leap programme and the way it makes you think about your actions. "The lightbulb goes on after you've spoken about a personal experience and you realise 'oh, that's why I did that, that's why that happened'," says Janet. She believes the programme has widespread benefits. "It has helped my personal development, and I don't snap like I used to."
According to Sanghera, Quarrelshop allows young people to see that they have choices in how they react and to understand the consequences of those choices. A recent course was run intensively for a month over the summer holiday, but others run over a longer timeframe. So what kinds of conflict prompt young people to attend? "Some want to work on something as simple as being barged on the street; others have conflict with a family member," says Sanghera.
The first part of the programme looks at conflict theory and how young people view conflict. The next part focuses on mediation, conflict resolution skills and building relationships. The third part designs and facilitates a programme for young people to work with their peers.
A key aspect is the use of supportive and imaginative techniques such as role play, individual work and small group activities. Sanghera sums up: "It gives young people skills they can use in the outside world. Conflict is inevitable, whether on the street or the Tube, so we help them to deal with it better."
SHAKS ESCAPES A LIFE OF CRIME
By the time he was 15, Shaks had been thrown out of the family home and had left school. If things had gone differently, he could easily have fallen into a life of crime. "I've seen people with money, a car and said 'I want that', and you try to work your way up the ladder," he says. "I chose to hang out with that group." Luckily a youth worker helped Shaks, who is now 20, get his life back together and onto a surer footing.
Attending the Quarrelshop programme has accelerated his transformation and he is putting what he has learned into practice on Newham's streets. "There's a lot of conflict - race, postcode crimes, what school you go to or what street you live in. But I'm sure I can use the skills learned here to effect change."
What he relished most was learning how to act as peacemaker. "My favourite aspect of Quarrelshop was mediation - I didn't understand it before," he says. "You're not giving people answers; you're helping them to find the solution themselves."
Shaks is now working as a detached youth worker and has been helping to resolve a territorial dispute between two groups of young people. "Some see me as a role model or big brother, and that allows me to calm them down and strip them apart. It's not under control yet, but I want to take it further," he says.
