AYF also lends a helping hand
Arran Youth Foundations has been shortlisted for a national award.
The charity’s leaders were nominated, by young people who attend the group, for the mental health and well-being award at Youthlink Scotland’s annual awards. The AYF team is in the final three, with the winner to be announced on Thursday March 15 at the Glasgow’s Crowne Plaza Hotel.
The award is sponsored by Mental Health Foundation Scotland and NHS Health Scotland and AYF’s two employees, Graeme Johnston and Hollie Watkins, will be hoping to enjoy as successful a night as they did at last year’s event. Graeme won national full-time youth worker of the year at the ceremony in 2017, while Hollie won national part-time youth worker.
It has been a successful year for the organisation, which also won trophies at the Arran Community Voluntary Services volunteer awards, with founder Helen Kerr winning community champion 2017 and young volunteer Abbie Jackson lifting young volunteer of the year.
This latest nomination is recognition of the work that AYF’s youth work team do to help youngsters around the island with their mental health and well being – supporting LGBT+ youngsters through weekly activities and counselling many other young people to help combat depression, self-harm, grief, stress and other issues. The youth workers often make referrals to other services including CAMHS, GPs, Penumbra and school counselling.
Youth work project manager Graeme Johnston said: ‘All of us at AYF are looking forward to the awards evening and we hope just being shortlisted will highlight to everyone on Arran that we are here to help.
We are looking to support as many young people as we can, not just with fun activities, but building resilience in young people and offering an ear to anyone who needs, whether that might be that they are struggling with bullying, exam stress, the loss of a loved one or anything else they have on their mind.’