Activities to do with youth offender?

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Kelly9512

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Hi,

I am currently at university doing a Criminology degree. For my one of my next year modules I have been accepted onto a Youth Offending Team Work Experience which I am very excited to do.

While completing this module I have to mentor a young person who is allocated by the youth offending team. I am hoping to combine my interests from the module with my love of horses and have arranged with my local riding school to take them there to "volunteer".

I am looking for some educational activities to do with them both on worksheets and with the horses so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

This individual will most likely be a teenager so I need to be careful in not making the activities too patronising if you know what I mean.

Other than the basic grooming and tacking up I have thought of points of the horse using little stickers, using a very placid pony of course :')

Can you guys think of any other activities that I could use?

A huge thanks in advance!
 
I would think stickers may be a bit patronising, can you let them ride? Take them to shows?
With people who don't already have an interest in horses you have to make it fun first, then teach later. :)
 
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When I say stickers I mean literally little dots just so when they know some points of the horse I could ask "where is the shoulder?" and the could put the dot where they think it is?

I'm not too sure if they will be able to ride that is something that I will have to ask closer to the time (it's not until the second semester). In my interview they mentioned that there was quite a few girls who were interested in horses and thats the type that they would try to pair me with.

The riding school doesn't really go to shows and I don't drive so I couldn't take them myself unfortunately, although I do agree that would be good!

I want to do the "teaching bit" in an interesting way and thats the bit I'm trying to work out :P
 
we have a program for children that don't do well at school (bad behaviour), and not one of them complained at labelling a horse's points with stickers- the older ones do their stages and love it! they do bones/digestive system too!
general quiz's, prize given that they choose what to do next?
You could 'borrow' another volunteer or team up with another youth offender and do tack and turn out type activities, races- first to muck a box out etc?
 
A teenager will have very little knowledge of the fact that Britain was built on the back of a horse. Without horses, there would have been no great industry before the steam revolution. Horses have been at the centre of every major manmade development, battle and success since they were first domesticated.

I'd maybe set some work about looking into that so that some of the work is actually quite serious and challenging, but is a really interesting way.

Honestly one of the major reasons I think many youngsters offend is that they have been severely lacking in having anyone show any faith in them. One of the best ways to help someone is to boost their self esteem, so even when they think they can't do something, you can tell them they even they don't believe in themselves, YOU have faith in them and YOU KNOW that they can do it.

I love the stickers idea and the partnering up idea. Maybe also look into horses for therapy as well and do some research into that, bringing that into the work you do with your young offender.

Oh...and something really useful when you first start is to take them to one side and just quietly say something like, "right, I know why you're here, you know why your here, but I just want you to know I don't care what you did, why you did or what you think about it...that was the past, I don't want to let it get in the way of us having some fun this week ok". It'll just let them know that you aren't going to judge them or look down at them...just be there and support them.

It also means that if you do get any problems, you can fall back on the fact that there is only one person to blame, because you had no interest in the past, so if they do, that's their problem...they can fester on it, or they can let it go and start to have fun again.

Hope that makes sense.

Can you tell I've had some experience of this? lol

It could well be the most interesting and fulfilling week of your life to date :)
 
During the summer I had three teenagers to keep amused, one of the things I did was give them some chalk and they had to draw the points
of the horse on the horse, when finished then I told them how well they had done, strip a saddle or bridle, practise plaiting or in hand work, however,
I had my nephew who has problems, poo picking as a punishment, he actually enjoyed it
 
I don't know about the young offenders you will be working with but from my experience if they aren't interested in horses you won't keep them engaged taking them to stables! It may be best to have a back up plan or wait till you meet them and find out what their interests are...other than offending :-/ ...and see if there is something there that you can relate to and do with them.
 
If they aren't interested then obviously I will look at other options, but they said it would be very likely that I will be paired up with someone that has an interest as they said they have a lot of girls who have showed an interest in the past.

The riding school I go to has worked with the Youth Offending Team in the past and other people who have had a few problems and I have seen how well it works. The transformations I have seen have been amazing!

So far I have thought of:

- Visiting shows - the Newcastle Riding Club show will be taking place when I doing this module as well as the Northumberland County Show
- Lessons if I can - handy pony etc.
- Grooming and plaiting - the riding school also has a hand held equisage that the kids find great!
- Stable management - points of the horse, tack cleaning, feed and the purposes, horse behaviour
 
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