0131 665 1621 
Inspiring young people to build a confident future
Folk are generally supportive about the work we do with young people. Folk we know: teachers; social workers; housing officers; nurses; mums; dads and others who have a live connection to the Project. It’s great to get positive feedback. It’s great to be able to celebrate the success of young people with them and their families. We’re proud as punch when they feel positive about and empowered by successfully navigated routes to achieving life milestones. Leaving school to got to college. Leaving homeless accommodation to set up their first tenancy. Completing a training course or getting their first job! Once in a while, we are invited to celebrate other events: the birth of a child; a college graduation or the tearing up of L driver plates. We are used to celebrating in our somewhat self-contained world. We love it!
It always comes as a great surprise when we are invited to celebrate with people who live their lives outside our ‘bubble’. We can be so intent on what we do every day, we sometimes forget to lift our heads high enough to realise we are more connected than we think. What a buzz we got when Katrina, the daughter of Allen and Christine Simpson, contacted us to let us know that her parents were keen that guests at their upcoming joint 60th birthday party make a donation to Bridges Project in lieu of birthday presents. Allen knew about our work through his many years of voluntary service as a Children’s Hearings Panel member and is well tuned in to the needs of vulnerable children and young people. That relative strangers should so kindly think of us when they are celebrating their own important milestones is genuinely humbling. Christine and Allen’s birthday party went with a swing. Their guests and family were incredibly generous to Bridges Project and the evening raised an amazing £530 for Bridges. We are grateful to Christine, Allen, Katrina and their guests for thinking about us and being so kind. We are grateful to be reminded that acts of kindness – in sentiment and deed – are everyday occurrences and that we should be lifting our heads above the parapets a little more often to share and celebrate them.
Ruth works with our Transitions Team in all six East Lothian secondary schools. She introduced her North Berwick employability group to Screen Education Edinburgh to explore issues around cyberbullying. Screen Education Edinburgh used CashBack for Creativity funding to work with the group after school over a number of weeks to produce a short film on cyberbullying. The group were involved in storyboarding, scripting, acting and all matters of filming. Their powerful story is told in the short film here: https://vimeo.com/206611143
The pupils should be proud of their work and for raising such an important issue. The film is an excellent example of meaningful collaborative working among schools, third sector agencies and funding partners which puts young people in control of their learning and development. It addresses an issue which affects so many young people in Scotland in and out of school. We are proud to be associated with the group and with the organisations involved. Every participant contributed. They are genuine community assets and are credits to their families, school and themselves.
We’re not being sent out for tartan ink or being asked to wait at the corner for the arrival of the long stand on 1 April. There will be no fool’s errands for Bridges Project staff, as they will all be too busy launching a new service – Way2Work#CashBack! An award of up to £409,000 over three years from the Scottish 
Government’s CashBack for Communities programme (Phase 4) will enable Bridges Project to provide a bespoke, quality service which opens doors of opportunity for young people who are aged 14 to 21 years in Midlothian and East Lothian.
Way2Work#CashBack will provide a mix of individual and group based interventions which address the needs of young people who are struggling to overcome the barriers to inclusion on their personal journeys to employment. Our experienced staff will build on the good will of local employers, communities and elected members and maximise the benefits of new and existing collaborations with third sector, local authority and educational partners to provide meaningful and sustainable opportunities for young people to make the most of what they can be.
We’re grateful; to be working alongside our longstanding partners from across the delivery spectrum in both local authority areas and look forward, very much, to new working relationships with Morrison Construction, Workingrite, the British Army’s 6 Scots, Bruce Robertson Training and Playback Ice. We’re delighted, too, to be able to plug in to the services provided by the Phase 4 ‘family’ of CashBack organisation http://www.cashbackforcommunities.org/ and to benefit from the support provided by Inspiring Scotland http://www.inspiringscotland.org.uk
Way2Work#CashBack will be challenging for young people who will be expected to take control of their own pathways to employment and create portfolios which address skills for learning, skills for life and skills for work. The mix of individual support, accredited learning and placement opportunities will be guided by staff. Ultimately, however, it will be up to each individual participant to make the choices they want to: improve personal capacity and confidence; positively change behaviours and grow aspirations; improve personal wellbeing; become more connected and improve attainment and engage with purpose in learning, employability and employment opportunities on their pathways to positive destinations. Our many years of experience has shown us that being involved, taking control and becoming empowered can be extremely challenging for young people who are more used to feeling disconnected, passive and supplicant. We’re not in the business of trying to squeeze square pegs in to round holes. We’re confident that this investment in a bespoke approach by the Scottish Government will make a genuine difference to the lives of local young people who strive to be successful learners, confident individuals, responsible citizens and effective contributors.
We are delighted to receive an award of £45,000 over three years from The Robertson Trust to support the work of our specialist Tutor Service. The grant enables the service to deliver regular, tailored one-to-one, needs led literacy and mathematics tuition and educational and study support for 40 young people each year. We will also run a demand led educational support programme including: college preparation groups; work placement preparation groups; maths support group and animal care study support groups. A programme of skills for life groups is planned including: money management; money handling; independent living skills and a range of cultural and learning opportunities such as theatre performances, science festival visits etc.
The beneficiary group is young people aged 14 to 21 years, all of whom have diverse and complex needs as a consequence of circumstances and/or personal difficulties. We hope, specifically, to be able to work with young people who are involved in the youth justice system; have a history of being looked after by the local authority; have missed schooling due to refusal and exclusion, illness, family trauma, bereavement, homelessness, caring responsibilities for family members or were bullied at school. Our tutors will work with young people who have personal barriers to overcome, such as: mental health problems; addiction issues; social isolation and mild learning difficulties including higher functioning autism. Historically, the young people accessing the Tutor service have not achieved their potential whilst at school and have missed out on the benefits of the educational process. They leave formal education with poor basic skills and feel disconnected from mainstream further education and training pathways. The Tutors will deliver an educational experience which will help to improve aspirations by building on strengths and addressing weaknesses and ultimately create individual pathways towards attainment in further education, employment or training. Staff and trustees are grateful for the generous investment in the futures of young people by The Robertson Trust and look froward to a fruitful partnership over the next three years.
For more information about the service and how to make a referral, please contact Emma Scarcliffe, our Practice Manager on 0131 665 1621.
My first encounter with Bridges Project was on a school visit in 2013 when I was part of a pupil charity fundraising group at Knox Academy in Haddington. After finding out about all the inspiring work this organisation does to support young people, I knew that one day I would want to come back myself and volunteer with them. I started my volunteering placement here at the start of June 2016, during the summer break from my university studies in Glasgow, and finished up at the end of August. The time has flown by and after two and a half months it is time to return to Glasgow to finish my degree in psychology. I have met such kind and talented young people and have been working with them and my supervisor Sandie in small groups, facilitating activities such as art, cooking and debate. I have thoroughly enjoyed working in the group programme. The groups rarely have more more than six people which is great as you get to know those you are working with so much better!
I especially enjoyed cooking with the young people. Bridges Project has excellent facilities which I could see the young people really appreciate and respect. Plus, no dish was too 
difficult; we have cooked complex fare like hot beef coconut curry and Thai fish soup which was very adventurous and delicious! We have also rustled up some equally tasty yet classic dishes such as chicken pie and macaroni!
Not only has the volunteering itself been brilliant but the staff here have made me feel so welcome and at ease when working with young people, I am very thankful to them all for their support over the summer, I have learnt so much from them! I also enjoyed my short stint as administrative assistant and have become the unofficial queen of the guillotine and laminator! Getting good quality work experience at the same time as volunteering has been very useful indeed.
My whole experience at Bridges Project has been eye opening and has left me considering some potential new career pathways. So, if you are considering volunteering in East Lothian with young people I would highly recommend this organisation.
April 2016 ushered in a fantastic collaboration with the Outreach Team at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery to introduce young people to exciting, participative contemporary art in Scotland.
Built around the themes of the Gallery’s ‘The UNTITLED/Bad Entertainment’ exhibition, young people from Bridges Project were able to explore what the Gallery and art in general has to offer them in today’s fast moving world of social media, online presence and reality television. Young people participated in mask making, photography and short video workshops to explore their personal stories and share their life experiences through the media of film and photography.
Ably supported by Richie Cumming, Outreach Officer at the National Galleries of Scotland, Project Scotland volunteer, Pablo Gonzales and our own Sandie Wyles, the ‘team’ were very creative in their engagement with the exhibition and the Gallery, learning that the issues which present in their day to day lives have real relevance in the world of Scottish contemporary art.
We hope that this is just the start for the participants and that they will build on this experience and realise that art can be as accessible, meaningful and involved to them as Facebook, Instagram and reality television.
Bridges Project values the energy, expertise and new ideas which volunteers, interns and placement students bring to our work with young people. It’s particularly interesting for young people when new faces also bring experience of living and working in different countries and cultures. Over the years we have welcomed great people from Germany, Norway, USA, Sicily, Australia, France and Spain. It feels as if our garden has been visited by dragonflies! They arrive, bringing extra colour and vibrancy to the place and then leave after a short while. Each one of our overseas visitors has made an impression…left a footprint. We are all the better for this.
This spring has been particularly interesting for staff and young people at Bridges Project. We were really happy to welcome Sabine, a school social worker from the Danish speaking city of Flensburg, Schleswig-Holstein in the north of Germany on a short professional internship.
We have just said goodbye to Sam, a Napier University Career Development placement student whose family roots are firmly embedded in the Yarouba Tribe of Western Nigeria and who worked in cosmopolitan London for a long time before heading north.
Pablo is our newest international team member. He is from Galicia in the north of Spain and after working in IT for a number of years in Spain and Edinburgh is now seeking a career change. Pablo is placed with Bridges Project through our partnership with Project Scotland.
In for the longer haul is Jacqueline, our Welsh student from Strathclyde University who is on placement with us as part of 
her counselling training course.
We are enriched by their contributions and the sharing of cultural backgrounds. We hope they take something away with them which is of equal value. They are all, of course, expected to contribute to the growing culinary cornucopia of our young cooking group participants. And to wear ‘the hats’! to find out more about volunteering, placement and internship opportunities, please click here.
Bridges Project welcomed its first referrals 30 years ago when staff were based in a small office in Cranston Street, Edinburgh. At that time, our main focus was in helping young tenants across 
the Lothians to make a success of their new homes. Poverty, social isolation, anxiety, poorly connected social anchors, unemployment and welfare reform were just some of the issues young people and staff had to deal with on a daily basis.
Some things do not change much. Whilst the Project has grown and services have been developed to meet growing need, many of the old personal barriers and structural obstacles remain for young people trying to make their way in the world. Optimism, motivation, determination, resilience and a desire to succeed were the key strengths staff used back then to help young people build positive pathways to good futures.
These attributes are alive and well today and the whole team at Bridges Project was delighted to showcase just some the incredible work undertaken by young people at our 30th birthday Open Day. 125 visitors were treated to live music and video productions, home cooking, art work and personal pathway presentations. Staff, young people and trustees were delighted by the show of good will to Bridges Project from parents, colleagues in the private, public and voluntary sector and by elected representatives.
Young people were heavily involved in developing our new strap line which was launched on the day. It feels very apt; whilst it is good to reflect on the past and learn from it, we need our young people to reach out to what lies ahead and we hope, very much to be inspiring young people to build a confident future for many years to come.
It’s always nice to feel appreciated for what we do. Our friends and regular donors, the members of Inner Wheel Club of Musselburgh, have been at it again – making us feel appreciated with a fantastic donation of £200 to support our work. The generosity of members over the last few years has been immense; we are delighted to be supported by this local organisation which is part of a much bigger whole. Find out more about their work here: http://innerwheeldistrict2.org.uk/index.php/clubs/musselburgh
We are also one of the charity beneficiaries of the Microsoft Scotland annual fundraising Burns Supper. Three members of staff enjoyed the food and hospitality at this year’s event on 28 January in the fabulous setting of the National Museum of Scotland. Our share of the funds raised is a whopping £18,022! We are grateful for being involved for the third year in a row with the Microsoft Scotland event and for the generosity of Microsoft Scotland and its partners.
