Dear Supporters,

We hope you all had a very pleasant Christmas and New Year.

As promised in our December newsletter here is your first instalment for 2008.

Prospex Detached

Detached work continues to be our main work-stream and is invaluable to our core values. We are working closely with the Islington Y-Bus team which is located in Bridgeman Road every Friday throughout January.

We are currently working in the Barnard Park Area, Boston/Naylor Estate, Bemerton Estate and Bingfield Estate every Monday and Friday evenings. It is very apparent that a completely new and large group of Young People are starting to appear on these estates.

No detached sessions had to be cancelled due to staffing in January.

Watch this space for some exciting developments in February…………

Prospex Life

It is our intention this year to run 10 Prospex Life courses; 6 to 8 Young People will attend a half day weekly workshop over a 6 week period.

To fit in our ambitions target of 10 some of these courses will run consecutively. 

Here is a little taster about the course……

The Prospex Life course is a short but very creative course designed to encourage, build and develop the life skills of all the candidates, giving them the necessary foundations to manage relationships, authority and become valued members of society.

The course is very interactive and practical which will engage and challenge each candidate to look at the way they live their lives their values and attitude towards their environment, community and those around them.

The course will cover the above subjects and includes a weekend residential where all the skills and techniques they have learnt over the course will come together and be practiced. 

Stephanie Conder and the Team are busy preparing funding applications as we go to print, to allow us to run these extremely valuable life changing courses.

Prospex Works

The exciting news for this month is that Maxine has just secured a work placement scheme at the Crowne Plaza, EC4. This will give a Young Person who is interested in becoming a Chef the opportunity to get first hand experience working in an extremely busy kitchen environment. Our first Young Person started 22nd January on an eight week placement; this has endless possibilities for any Young Person showing the right skills and attitude. Prospex would like to thank Graham Digweed and the Crowne Plaza team for all their help and support in providing this placement. 

This now brings our total placements to 5 and includes: ICSL Accord, H.F.I (homes for Islington) Acur Scaffolding and Flower Day Florists.

Maxine is continuing to grow this work-stream and she will update you in future issues of our newsletter.

If anyone can assist in providing a work- placement for a Young Person please contact Maxine.

Prospex Families

It is our intention to put a huge amount of time and development into this work-stream this year. We submitted a funding application to Children in Need in November 2007 and have been successful in passing the first stage.

If granted, this will allow us to recruit a full-time family support worker for 3 years and give the much needed support within our community. 

Prospex Xtra

This work-stream has been created for all the other activities and programs that we provide, but do not fit into our 4 main work-streams.

These include: 

• 1-2-1s
• Healthy Eating
• Short Term Projects
• Six a Side Football
• Club Based Sessions
• Literacy
• Advocacy
• Community Partnerships

One workshop that we are running this month is with Scoot-a-Live, this is a 6 week program running every Wednesday in partnership with Scoot-a-Live, Sparkplug and Prospex.

The program includes:  

• Islington Drug & Alcohol Team
• The London Fire Brigade
• Sparkplug
• Road Safety
• The MetPolice
• Scrambling Day

10 Young People will attend the program where behaviour and boundaries will be challenged.

The above list is by no means all of the activities that fall within Prospex Xtra, but it gives you an idea of other areas that Prospex is developing. We will explain each Prospex Xtra Program in more detail in forth-coming monthly newsletters.

The X from the current Prospex Logo is currently been developed and will become very prominent in future publications, stationary and our website (which we are revamping as we go to press).

Our final bit of news on this cold and windy January, is that Matt returned on the 14^th January from his 10 week tour of other similar Youth Organisations across the UK and New York.

Visit youth work explored by Matt Calvert for further details.

This ties nicely in to a monthly feature that we will be running in our newsletter, who am I? In this issue it just had to be Matt………

Who Am I???………………..

Matt Calvert: Founder of Prospex.

“Moving to London in 1998 was a difficult thing to do for a country boy like me but, 10 years on I couldn’t really see myself any where else.

The Vision for Prospex was given to me back in 1991 while in the Dominican Republic but only started to become a reality in 2001 after moving to London and spending 3 years sitting in stairwells talking, listening and engaging the Young People of the Bemerton Estate.

Driven very much by my faith and being a father myself of a gorgeous daughter of 5 (not to mention the 10 week sabbatical) my drive to see Prospex succeed and my passion for Young People and to see young lives change is very much there.

Spending the first part of my life in Zambia as a missionary kid has given me a real heart not only for Africa but the bug for travelling and seeing the world. I’ve been very fortunate to have seen a lot of it too, and very much look forward to seeing more over the coming years.

I’m a registered chocoholic and have the embarrassing phobia of frogs (which I’m coming to terms with)

I am sure you will all join us in welcoming Matt back to Prospex as we look forward to a challenging and exciting 2008.

Wishing you all A Very Happy New Year.

The Prospex Team & Young People.

Prospex Community Drop-In Centre 

Opening Hours - February 2008