Ill Behaviour

The young people on the project ranged from those who had been in quite minor trouble, to those who had been in plenty and were proud of it. In particular, those coming from ISSP felt the need to show how "bad" they were to the others by dominating them. There were many opportunities for trouble and, although the workers were expecting it, they weren't expecting to have to deal with it themselves. Oh, and the projects were taking place in public.

When a groundsman's buggy was taken for a joy-ride at Brooksby, the young people involved felt they were safe on the project and that there would be no big comeback from it. However, it was only down to the understanding nature of the Brooksby staff that the incident didn't end in serious trouble.

It wasn't just the young people who had trouble seeing the seriousness of a situation. During the Music project, two young people had found the keys to a tractor mower. Not knowing that taking this kind of vehicle had been a problem before, Kieran trusted them to return the keys to the mower unsupervised.

Similarly, when one of the female workers was left alone to supervise some of the lads, she was seriously intimidated by one of them. None of the other workers realised she was alone and the incident wasn't followed-up properly.

In future projects, the expansion of trust to the young people will be important and necessary, but communication between the workers has to be more accurate to avoid situations going awry and being abused.