TransitionWe are at a crucial stage in the transition of Prospex. Last year we took a thorough look at ourselves; what we are working to achieve, what we hold most dear to us, the way we do our work, our core strengths, our ambitions, the possibilities and limitations we face.

From this review we came up with a clear strategy to build a well managed professional organisation, with a strong business systems approach, clear values and deliverables - and based ourselves around four core work streams; Detached Work, Prospex Works, Life Prospex and Prospex Families.

The first 6 months of 2006 has been about making it happen. We are right in the middle of doing that and it is both an exciting and scary place to be. I am delighted at our progress, yet there seems an overwhelming amount still to do.

Moving premises is absolutely key to where we are going as an organisation. Our new premises with a wide shop window frontage on the Caledonian Road (thanks primarily to the Cripplegate Foundation who have funded our rent for the next two years) will be ready for initial ‘move in’ at the end of August, and this will mean much better access for our young people and their carers too. We will be a simple ‘walk in’ in an area familiar and open to all. Exciting. We still need a lot more funding to get the job completed; we have had many of our young people engaged on the renovation project which has made the money go further, but some jobs just need professional support (electrical, plumbing, telecommunications, security etc) and we are still struggling to raise the necessary £25,000 to get the Drop In centre to the standard needed. Come and take a look for yourself. Many, many thanks to Beef and all the young people who have worked so hard to make this happen.

Other really good news is that lots of individuals and organisations are getting in touch as a result of the good work going on and improved public awareness of us. A couple of examples of this are that our success in Prospex Works has now led to interest from Hyde Housing interest in taking us onto all their estates, and Southern Housing have asked us to bid for Detached Work in Market Road. We are really starting to get recognition for both the quality and the sustainable nature of our service – we are here to stay!

PublicityWe had a nice article published about our work in the Financial Times Magazine, and other publicity has resulted from this such as an interview I will be doing on Radio 2, 27th August at 7.00a.m. Other sources of support are also emerging - Kids Company and MTV are expressing interest in us, as well as a slowly growing a number of private individuals. Our task is to keep building this and convert interest into active financial support. As part of this we are trying capitalise on our higher profile by driving Personal Giving through mail drops. Personal giving is hugely valuable to us – because it is money we have some flexibility to spend as needed – and is a predictable sustainable regular source of income. Please encourage your friends and relatives to join our regular givers group.

As you will gather, the work is expanding rapidly and a key issue for us is the development and growth of team Prospex. We are all working extremely hard to keep up, and as we are able to build funding we hope that we will be able to invest a little in the team.

A date for your diaries – we plan to hold big recognition event for 10 or so of our young people who have achieved real successes as a result of their use of Prospex. This will be on 2nd March 2007, and we hope every one of you will come along to that and support these young people in person as they are recognised for their progress.

You may have noticed on the website that Robin Voss, our chairperson for the past 5 years, has decided to pass this role on to another of your Trustees – Mike Hickes. Robin has done a wonderful job for us in this time seeing us from inception to the momentum we have today – a big thank you for that. Robin will continue as a Trustee.

Detachedwe have had to limit our workload here to match our capacity to do the work. This is our key source for contacting and building relationships with our young people right now. We have kept the work targeted to key areas and are actively seeking funding for a further Detached Worker.

Prospex WorksProspex Works is our flagship work stream – Maxine has done a fantastic job building up the number of projects which have included work at Ring Cross, Westbourne Community Centre, and the Caledonian Road Community Centre. These projects have provided superb work experience for 18 young people. We were delighted earlier this year to have received a grant from the Jack Petchey Foundation of £15,000 for our work placement scheme. We have currently got two organisations giving us placements, ICSL (thanks especially to James Connelly) and Castle’s (thanks especially to Sarah McGill). Getting work experience is CRUCIAL to enabling our young people to understand the world of work, getting supervised experience, and building their CV’s so they can get out and participate in the world of work – it is also the most requested activity we get from them.

Our sincere appreciation to Maxine who has made this all happen. Our thanks also to the Rank Foundation for their financial support, without which this would not be happening.

Life prospexLife prospex is completing the design and piloting of a new unique development programme. Our sincere appreciation to the Hedley Foundation who have been crucial in providing the vital financial support which has enabled this. We have one final session to run (starts 8th January) to road test the design. We then have ‘lift off’ on 16th April 2007. The key changes we are making impact the subjects covered (communications skills, self esteem, self awareness, relationships with others, teamwork boundaries and responsibility). In particular we will be creating an incentive scheme which will provide participants with a bonus for successful completion. The bonus pool will be able to both increase and decrease depending on participant’s behaviour and responses to the development opportunity. Beef has taken control of the management of these pilots and has done an excellent job refining and building the approach – a big thank you to Beef. Again – funding is the critical question going forward – we are actively seeking financial support for the 2007 programme.

Prospex FamiliesProspex Families is all out of funding – although thanks to Tanya Byron, in September we will be continuing some key work with parents in helping them discuss the issues they face and build new parenting skills. Building the parental environment that prevents the kind of problems that bring the young people into Prospex must rate as the most fundamental and important work we can possibly do – this is the paradigm shifting work that gets to the very root of how the problems our young people face come about – we have an ambitious plan for parental life Prospex, but NO funding – help! This plan includes developmental experiences for parents similar to those we are giving our young people though Life Prospex.

Volunteer Post Funding is a crucial activity for us – we still live from hand to mouth and it is very difficult to hold a sustainable organisation together and keep everyone motivated when we do not know what the next years holds for us financially. We work with a number of people who work hard to help us raise funds from different sources, but we would really would benefit from some one who would give us their time (2/3 days a week maximum) to co-ordinate all this and to build and operationalise a more sustainable strategy. What we basically need is a savvy person who can figure their way through a problem, work well with others, and who is driving and energetic – someone who will be a catalyst to build a stable base for us. We are not looking for some one necessarily with experience of fundraising – but they must be responsive, positive about the work we do and ideally have some business experience.