Tag: Writing

community

SCYAP Blog for October 2026

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BBC CIN Youth Club Dictionary Launch:

I wanted to begin our SCYAP October Blog  by supporting our colleagues at BBC Children in Need with the launch of their Youth Club Dictionary, a new resource celebrating the words, phrases and experiences that come from youth club culture across the UK. The  campaign aims to highlight the importance of youth work and the positive difference that youth clubs make in young people’s lives. SCYAP perhaps does  not operate what is traditionally thought to be a youth club, but we do support groups and youth action activities which provide a similar sense of belonging and connection  for local young people. We therefore fully endorse this campaign and would encourage everyone to have a  look at the Dictionary and enjoy how the words are used with great insight and creativity.  The dictionary has been collated in collaboration with Oxford University Press and has also been championed by rapper and former youth club member DC3 Media, who has released a track and music video inspired by the language and experiences captured within the dictionary.  Karen Bradley who is the  BBC Children in Need Impact Manager for Scotland has highlighted: “With 1,200 youth clubs closing since 2010, JD Sports and BBC Children in Need are calling on the nation to help protect the spaces that speak the language of youth. Places like the Safer Communities Youth Action Project . To find out more and donate to youth clubs, visit www.youthclubdictionary.co.uk.”

Volunteering Matters Action Earth:

We have now entered our Autumn and winter programme for 2026/27, and whilst we have a new youth social action project at the developmental stage, we also have ongoing programmes and activities available for local young people. Firstly, I would like to congratulate the young volunteers who spent time over their October School holiday to work in the SCYAP Wild Nature Garden within the woods beside Tamfourhill Community Hub . The Group cleared loads of undergrowth, prepared planters and seeded them with wildflowers and pollinators which should appear next spring. The paths have been cut back so there is now improved access to the SCYAP wild nature garden and bench. We also spent time enjoying nature in the woods and finished off the afternoon with a tasty BBQ and toasted marshmallows on the fire. This Wild Nature Garden was developed through our Standing up for Nature Programme which was funded via  the Volunteering Matters Action Earth Project. Thanks to everyone who volunteered throughout the funded phase  of the Porject  going back to April this year. The Wild Nature garden has been a success; encouraging  biodiversity, providing  vegetables for the community and  with the rapid growth of  fruit trees and bushes which are now beginning to thrive.

October School Holiday Programme:

The October School Holiday programme operated over the two weeks of the school holidays and was a mixture of Master Chef at the Hub with young people learning  about food preparation and cooking and outdoor learning activities, including; a session at the Well Wild Project and a Mountain biking expedition led by FEL.

Twilight Sports Winter Programme:

As the clocks have gone back, and the nights are fare drawing in so it must be time for the Twilight Sports Winter Programme 2026/27; We are very happy to announce that the  Programme returns on Friday 6th November from 6pm-8pm in  Tamfourhill Community Hub and it’s all free for 10-16 year olds, food and drink provided, we have our usual sports of Rollerblading & fun fitba, Dr Bike will be available as detailed on the programme below and also a few surprises along the way.

SCYAP Blog for October highlights the importance of spaces for young peoples language through the BBC Children in Need; Youth Club Dictionary campaign, also what's happening this Autumn with local young people and off course the return of the winter Twilight Sports Programme.

And finally, we always take our evaluation of all our activities and programmes very seriously, not least to ensure that young people are able to have a meaningful say in the types of provisions and opportunities we provide. Young people are our most important stakeholders and they should therefore be at the centre of both the evaluation and the development of everything SCYAP gets involved with , empowerment and responsibility are then our key drivers. SCYAP off course has a responsibility to report back to our funders and describe in some details how young people have been involved with the development of the Project and how the funding has been used against the agreed criteria and expected outcomes of the respective funders. So to conclude this months blog here is a really good and fun short movie of young people evaluating last summers Twilight Sports Programme. Leo our young volunteer spent considerable time editing and filming this short piece, which asked quite simply for young people to describe their experiences of the Twilight sports programme but to do this by only using one word; enjoy to the full;

For those who would like some more details , here is the full Summer Twilight Sports Programme 2026 young peoples Evaluation report.

Twilight sports summer 26 yp feedbackDownload

community

The Safer Communities Youth Action Project, What’s in a name ?

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What’s in a name, well in our case quite a lot: The Safer Communities aspect evolved from or is a legacy  of the Our Place Community Safety Strategy for Camelon and Tamfourhill and the Youth Action element describes the approach we take to working with and supporting local young people within the community. Two of the SCYAP key outcomes are lifted directly from that  local community safety strategy which was agreed in response to  an extensive period of community consultation that took place in 2020-21  through the dark days of covid and beyond. This work was then substantiated with a period of youth engagement that took place in 2022 and to cut a very long winding story short cumulated with the Tamfourhill Tenants and Residents Organisation successfully resourcing,  establishing and launching SCYAP in May 2023.

In relation to the Youth Action element of our name:  Youth Social Action can be defined as youth led activities that produce a benefit for communities as a result of the action, and for young people, as a result of taking part in the social action. Social Youth Action can take many forms, including; volunteering, campaigning for change or to support an issue or concern, tutoring and peer mentoring, fundraising or  other activities or projects where young people come together to solve an issue or improve something in their community. SCYAP has supported many such projects over the last three years and especially in relation to climate action and environmental improvements.

I emphasise this at a time where we have secured another  three years of funding for the Project  and therefore at a time when we consolidate the activities we do well but also look to future developments and perhaps a more long-term  legacy.

Although community safety and youth action are interwoven throughout the SCYAP approach, clearly  activities such as the Twilight Sports and the School Holiday Activity Programmes primarily fall into the community safety theme. These activities  however  also facilitate opportunities for young people’s learning and development and contribute massively to the Youth Action aspect of SCYAP. We are currently discussing with partners and researching what significant projects we would now want to take forward which are fully aligned to our Youth Social Action  ethos and which also meet our five key outcome’s and their indicators of success. After our development day in June and our more recent engagement with young people and delivery partners a number of distinct issues seem be evolving as priorities: The transition from primary to secondary school, mental well-being and support, bullying and isolation and young people generally having their concerns listened to and taken seriously. At this time of writing, we are working with some of our regular delivery partners, staff, volunteers and young people with the aim of  designing a Youth Social Action Project which will  be a longer-term  project which can leave a legacy for the community and for the next generation of local young people. The challenge is to develop and deliver a project that effectively addresses these issues and concerns. Young people must be central to this process; they must have ownership of this and be empowered to ensure the effectiveness and relevance of this Legacy Project. I would describe an essential requirement of this project as it being authentic, and that young people are learning through engaging with real world challenges and ultimately that young people gain confidence in their ability to influence the world around them. No easy feat I know but the process has begun and will be further explored over the next few months, and I will off course keep the wider community , partners and young people regularly updated with progress. At this stage I would highlight our updated development pan for 2026-29 as detailed below, as this is the framework within which  this Youth Social Action Legacy Project and all our ongoing activities will be delivered.

draft outcomed doc updated August 26Download

Group Programme for Autumn 2026

It was great to welcome everyone back to the Thursday night Youth Action Group at the start of September, and especially nice to have new members, so we warmed up with some icebreaker and get to know you games, followed by pizzas and fruit kebabs. We then took part in a World Café to try and suggest how we could make our community better for everyone, we had three themed stations to visit : facilities & activities, nature & climate action and making our community safer. Some tremendous ideas and plans, perhaps some can be taken forward in the future. Well done to our young community activists #Youthaction This was followed up with a session led by  our colleague Louise who is the Master Chef at the Hub which involved the skilful creation of  Chicken fajitas followed by fruit and ice cream.

And finally:

We would like to thank Scottish Canals for inviting SCYAP along to the @Illumin8 event at the Falkirk Wheel, a group of eleven young people and three volunteers attended on Sunday night 27th September and had a memorable experience. Lights, lasers and water combined to provide an amazing aesthetic experience, the Group also enjoyed the Light up Woods, their snacks and the silent disco. We were also delighted to hear from  Scottish Canals that the SCYAP community orchards planted in March of this year are thriving and that some  fruit  has grown on the apple trees.   

Next months October Blog will provide details of the Twilight Sports Winter Programme 2026/27.   

community

Learning Together in the Community:

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Recognising and celebrating young people’s achievements

Youth Awards play a significant part in the work of SCYAP, and this is aligned in the first  instance to one  of the Projects  key  outcomes:  Young People will improve their social skills, confidence to learn,  through undertaking national accredited awards and volunteering. Learning happens in many contexts and from the  perspective of professional youth work we recognise that young people develop and learn with each other within  the community. Attending school is one aspect to how young people learn but it is only one dimension to learning, and SCYAP recognises how the process of community learning and development compliments and enriches young people’s wider educational  experiences. The Summer Programme 2026 has facilitated a really wide array of learning  and development  opportunities for local young people, and  it has been a very rewarding experience for the staff team to have been part of those  young people’s learning journeys. In particular I  would want to highlight and celebrate  the 10-13’s Group who undertook the Survival and Bushcraft programme, including the overnight shelter building activity in the Rough Castle Woods. Our ongoing  partnership with the Well Wild Project has delivered really significant impacts for all of the ten young people who took part in this particular accredited award programme. I am very grateful to the professionalism and collaborative approach undertaken by John Wells at his Well Wild Woods site (Johns Woods)  and the way he utilises  the outdoors and bushcraft as facilitators of personal growth and encouraging the learning of skills and attributes which young people can take away  into other aspects  of their lives. In our recent evaluation discussions John Wells commented:

The Young people involved gained so much confidence & personal growth. By the end of the summer programme every young person who attended the Well Wild sessions left the woods a better version of themselves with life skills that they will surely take with them as they grow into individual citizens.

It was evident as the sessions went on that young people had started building more trusting relationships with one another, friendships were growing and you could see them having to rely on one another at times, depending on each other’s work, especially at the survival overnight camp.

This approach can best be  described  as experiential learning and it thrives in the natural  classroom that has no walls.  

We are now supporting young people to complete  their peer assessments and personal reflection sections of their Dynamic Youth Awards and a really  important aspect  to this is young people receiving positive encouragement and recognition from their peers, this really does build their confidence and self-esteem and strengthen their relationships with their peers. Through our recent development  day and the reviewing of our development plan for the next three years it was agreed that we need to confirm a good progression pathway  for young people who get regularly involved  with SCYAP. In summary this is about providing opportunities for individual young people to begin by participating with local youth action activities, then begin to help out and volunteer and eventually potentially taking on greater responsibilities and leadership roles, and perhaps even becoming a sessional paid member of staff. This really is about building community capacity and empowering local young people to have greater responsibility with an increased and significant  role with the development of their own local community. In this respect I would like to congratulate Leo Cierpikowski who has just completed his Gold Youth Achievement Award and who presented his peer mentoring work to an invited audience at the Hub on 4th August. Leo was also employed as a sessional youth worker  throughout  the Summer Programme,  and he provides an excellent role model for other young people, especially in terms of how you can progress your involvement  through undertaking youth awards and giving to the community through volunteering.

There is a second strand  to the SCYAP Youth action approach, where  in addition to  the personal development and attainment opportunities, young people are also able to make a positive contribution to their local community. We have seen this on a regular basis with our environmental improvement  and community arts projects throughout Camelon and Tamfourhill. Over the Summer programme 2026 the Group were  involved with two creative community development projects supported by our Community artist  and design worker Sarah Diver Lang. We had the wonderful active travel procession along the route of the Tamfourhill Totem Pole trail on the towpath of the top canal and also the creation of our community treasures  online  trail. Both of  these projects celebrate the  assets within our community and encouraged young people to improve and celebrate aspects of the local area. These projects are also well aligned to our first Key outcome: Young People will have better connections with the wider community. Sarah commented  in her evaluation feedback that : 

The Canal active travel  procession ensured there was lots of engagement with the outdoors, this was an essential part of the programme to enhance creativity through creative workshops and wellbeing and through walks and foraging materials. Participants were thanked and celebrated for their contributions aiming to increase pride and recognise the impact of their work for the wider community. 

Participants led on the direction and format of the Community Treasures project, designing the programme during the development – increasing confidence and seeing impact of their participation through active projects. Participants during the three-day workshop led on deciding which community treasure they wanted to highlight ensuring their voices were heard. The walk helped build relationships and engagement with spaces as well as health and wellbeing.

Please visit the totem pole trail : Great News for SCYAP – Safer Communities Youth Action Project

Please visit the Community Treasurers online trail: https://www.sarahdiverlang.com/localtreasures

For further information on the National Youth Awards and their process of progression please visit: https://www.youthscotland.org.uk/awards/ SCYAP successfully also utilises these awards in our work with local schools and they are an ideal way of linking the school curriculum, with the community and facilitating the positive outcomes of  experiential learning.  

And finally, I would like to sign off with the voice  of the young people who travelled along their different but complimentary routes through the SCYAP  Summer Programme Awards journey:

  • I feel more confident now and I was more assertive at the overnight survival camp.
  • I am much better able to speak up for myself, and I can confidently give instructions to other people when working on a team task.
  • I am able to say things I wouldn’t normally be comfortable saying and was able to speak about an individual  snoring at the overnight camp.
  • I got to meet  new  people throughout the programme and got to know them better.
  • I better understand the transitions, and I have got to know people that  I will be going to High school with,
  • Yeah the overnight survival has  changed me as I couldn’t  bring and use  my phone as much
  • The  overnight programme at Johns Woods have really  improved my resilience
  • Building the overnight den really showed good teamwork
community

Always the Summer Sun

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Summer 2026 has already left its mark on us with Scotland stumbling out of the world cup, but please don’t be too down about that unfortunate outcome, because it’s now  a case of NO SCYAP NO PARTY for the rest of the school summer holidays.

We began our summer activities with the SCYAP development day on Sunday 21st June which took place in the community centre that has no walls at the Well Wild Project  in the Rough Castle Woods. As SCYAP moves into its second tranche of three-year funding from the National Lottery Young Start Programme, this  then was an appropriate time to review  the Projects Development Plan and take stock of the areas of work we had supported over the previous three years. The approach to achieving this was facilitated  through bringing young people together in an empowering way to work in partnership with the staff, volunteers and members of the Tamfourhill Tenants and Residents Organisation. There were opportunities to work and learn together, along with some creative workshops looking at planning our summer community arts projects. The Well Wild Projects ethos afforded us the positivity of working together as a team and building trust amongst each other. The young people responded very positively to the role play activity we undertook which impactfully  highlighted the importance of working in an inclusive and empathetic way. We look to the future of SCYAP  with hopefully a sense of collective responsibility and ownership  of local youth action and future community development activities. A full report with proposed areas of  future activity is currently being collated and with the potential  availability of increased funding we can now move forward in a  more strategic and connected  way over the next three years. My personal thanks to all who participated and to my cofacilitators Sarah Diver Lang  and John Wells for their specific inputs  and support with the days programme.   

I was delighted last week to attend the P7 Leavers Assembly at Easter Carmuirs Primary  School and offer my support to the Class of 26. We had been working with  the class since last November on their Dynamic Youth Award Challenge: To experience nature and to help nature in their local community.  The class from Easter Carmuirs along with young people from Carmuirs Primary and the SCYAP Creative Climate Action Group were all distinct strands of our commitment to  deliver upon  young people’s priorities for local climate action and standing up for nature.  Young people have been involved with planting orchards and clearing up the local canal, experiencing nature in the local parks and at the Well Wild Project. The Carmuirs group have also  established a wild garden within the woods next to the Tamfourhill Community Hub. Creativity formed a significant part of the respective groups programmes and with all three groups being involved with the design and creation of  the Active Travel Totem Poles Trail. The Totem Poles are now installed along the active travel route on the Onion Canal through Tamfourhill so I am therefore overjoyed to be able to invite everyone along to  an Active travel Procession past all ten of the Totem poles, please meet  at 1pm on Wednesday 8th July, food and drink will be  provided, the starting and meeting point is at this link

https://maps.app.goo.gl/8C6hF2XAU7YbhRso8

Consistent with our Youth Action approach all of the young people successfully gained two- and three-star Dynamic Youth Awards through their involvement and contributions  to these Climate Action and nature based creative Programmes.    

I want to give a special mention to the work of the Carmuirs Community Safety Group who we worked with since the start of 2026. This was a collaboration between the school , SCYAP and the Well Wild Project and was focused upon responsibility, accountability and managing risks in the community. It was a challenging programme, very hard hitting and dealing with very sensitive issues. The six P7 boys excelled on this programme and watching their development over the 4 months was inspirational. I was delighted to present them all with their Dynamic Youth Awards and we look forward to their continued participation in their community. This project was an excellent example of the power of collaboration between the school and youth work sectors.

SCYAP Summer programme begins  on Tuesday 30th June with our trip to  Falkirk Fire station, we have an amazing array of creativity, outdoor learning and good fun activities. As always our programmes are underpinned by a commitment to get young people  more involved  with their local community and provide quality social and personal learning opportunities. The programme is  open to 10-18 years olds and is entirely free, some activities however are only available for 10–13-year-olds and to book on please use the QR code detailed below.

There will be three Summer Fun in in the Parks events delivered by SCYAP this year which are being part funded by Greenspace Scotland Parks 4 Life Community Fund, this first is on Thursday 2nd July from 1pm-4pm in Easter Carmuirs Park, the flyer below provides all the details, these events are open to all the community , however under 10-year-olds will require responsible adult supervision in order to take part in some of the activities.    

And finally, I am really pleased to announce that we successfully secured a two-year package of funding through the KFC Youth Foundation which will be utilised to deliver our key youth action activities and to support developments around the  Twilight Sports Programme. To gain this support is a very real endorsement for the work of SCYAP and our ability to deliver quality activities which are having significant positive impacts upon young people and the wider community.    

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New course – Creative Writing Introduction

Our Place Camelon and Tamfourhill

I’m giving my blog this week over to tell you about a new training course that I’m pleased to be able to bring to you.

Following comments from some local residents and a couple of opportunities that arose through unplanned means, we have put together a Creative Writing Introductory Course. This is completely free for local residents.

Through 6 sessions that will be delivered with a mix of live ‘online via zoom’ and ‘work offline at your own pace’ learning, we will give you an overview of how to get started in Creative Writing, with hints and tips along the way to help you get into writing in its various forms. 

Joining me to bring this course are 2 experts – Susan Marshall and Kev McPhee – local writers who want to inspire and help you on your own journey to writing. Additionally, our friends at Camelon Arts will be supporting in a variety of ways.  During the course there will be various practical tasks for you to do along the way that will take you through different styles of writing which might help you decide (if you haven’t already), what kind of writer you think you want to be, or what writing style you will have. At the end of it, we’ve got something special planned – but we’ll keep that under wraps for now! What we can say is that as well as the surprise, we will have other learning options that will focus on specific types of writing so that you can continue in your chosen field.

Right now, as the 10 second clip below shows, I’m busy editing videos and tidying up the sessions to make this the best it can be for you. This would have been so much easier to get you in a room together but that’s obviously not to be at the moment.


For now, if you’re interested in being a part of this course, simply click the link below to be taken to a survey monkey page where you can insert your contact details and we’ll be in touch with more information.  We aim to start the course in late February.

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/FLJL8C9

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Friday Feature – Connecting People

Our Place Camelon and Tamfourhill

Welcome to the first of an occasional series where we will highlight something that we feel is of special interest to you, the lovely people of Camelon and Tamfourhill (and others too if you’re looking in!) We might feature an organisation, an activity, an individual, an opportunity or any number of things. If you feel you have something worth including here, then please get in touch with Dan, our Community Coach.

For today, we’re going to feature an opportunity that pretty much everyone could get involved in and benefit from. And it comes from the Compassionate Communities Team at Strathcarron Hospice.

Here’s a couple of quick questions:

Can you talk or write?
Would you like to be connected with someone with similar interests?
Would you like to offer friendship and a listening ear?

If the answer to any or all of those questions is “yes”, then this could be the opportunity for you. 2020 has been unexpected to say the least! And it has been tough for many especially in terms of keeping in touch with others. If you’re not great on a computer and stuck in your house, conversation for many has become a distant memory.

The Compassionate Communities Team at Strathcarron Hospice have seen and understood this, as have we here at OPCT. So they have have set up this opportunity that is open to all. It will enable you to connect with someone of like mind either by phone or through the good old art of writing letters – it’ll be like having a penpal as used to be a norm for lots of people many years ago.

As well as helping people remain connected, this could even bring out a creative spirit within you. Maybe you’ve always wanted to get into creative writing and didn’t have an outlet for it? Here at OPCT we’re looking at doing something with the writing skills of local people in 2021 so this scheme could be a good way to start warming those skills up in readiness. We’ve got a local author willing to help us, and a few ideas for putting your skills on show. All we can say is, watch this space!

For now though, to get more information on the Connecting People scheme in addition to the flyer below, you can email fv.compassionatecommunities@nhs.scot or call 07881 511961. Alternatively you can contact us and we’ll help you do the necessary.

***Please share especially with those you know who are not online.***