News from RPT

Summer 2019: Change Ahead

This school year has seen a period of significant transition for RPT as our Grenfell-related projects came to an end and we brought our focus back to our mission of ‘enriching the lives and expanding the horizons of children and young people’.

RPT is an agile charity: we continually reflect on and adapt our services to meet emerging national and local issues; we listen to what young people are telling us through our Youth Forum; and we recently commissioned an independent piece of research to identify gaps in provision and emerging national and local issues.

This research highlighted the concerns of children and young people in London, including mental and  physical health concerns (specifically obesity and substance misuse), safety concerns (highlighted by fears over gangs and knife crime) and concerns for their futures, impacted by unemployment.

As a result of this research, RPT, together with the young people with whom we work, have developed our own 'theory of change' model, which defines our future direction. We will continue our successful core services: Magic Mums, Baby Equipment Lending, Homework Club, Junior Club, Youth Club, Project Athena and the Football Academy, plus we have some exciting plans for service development.

To address concerns around mental health and wellbeing, we are looking to develop a quiet space and expand our creative arts programmes. Sport and exercise are and will continue to be key themes in all our programmes, including our Project Athena girls-only service, for which we have introduced a specialist fitness coach.

To address safety concerns, we are working with West London Zone to deliver targeted group sessions on gangs and knife crime with boys and young men who have been identified as most-at-risk. This programme, called Man Cave, gives young men the space and support to have honest and open discussions about the issues that matter to them.

Over Easter, we ran a course supported by the MET Police for young people who have gang associations and are on the fringes of involvement with knife crime.

We have also been working with Arts Alliance on a major creative arts project called Amplify, developing a creative hub in Notting Dale and linking this to work experience opportunities and future careers. Amplify has an exciting programme of activities lined up for the summer holidays, including a three-week ‘Finding Rhythms’ programme and late night music and basketball sessions. Arts Alliance is also working with us on future improvements to our existing music studio and the creation of a second studio.

While we look ahead, we also look back on the past three incredibly successful years of our Homework Club, which has been led by the tireless Jac Mavity. Jac is now moving onto horizons new, and she will be deeply missed by the staff, volunteers and hundreds of children, young people and families whom she has supported. She leaves behind a legacy of professionalism and passion, never accepting 'good enough' for the children she supported. We look forward to introducing you to our new Homework Club Manager in September and thank Jac for three wonderful years.

Mark Simms   and   Sophie FitzHugh

CEO                           Head of Services