At the end of last week, the SPRINT Project welcomed the St Basils Youth Voice Youth Advisory Board to the University of Birmingham.
This follows on from the success of last years’ event, which saw members of Youth Voice complete a one-day Mental Skills Training (MST) workshop with the SPRINT Project before heading to the Raymond Priestly Centre in the Lake District to showcase and further develop their mental skills in a new outdoor environment.
Keep reading to find out more about this year’s one-day MST workshop!
Image description: Members of St Basils Youth Voice ready for their MST day at the University of Birmingham.
After some fun ice-breaker activities and introduction to mental skills, the group got going with the strengths profiling activity. After brainstorming a variety of mental strengths they started thinking about their own and completed the strengths profiling activity. If you want to have a go at this activity yourself then check out our online interactive version here, or head over to our free MST Toolkit page where you can download the activity Toolkit for free.
Image description: A collection of post-it notes on a whiteboard that shows the ideas the young people came up with when they were brainstorming mental strengths. Some examples include: dedicated, focussed, time management, endurance, resilience, determination, compassionate and organisation.
After some well-deserved lunch time nourishment, it was time for the next activity—the University of Birmingham scavenger hunt! This was an opportunity to put the important mental skills and teamwork into practice and explore the exciting University of Birmingham attractions at the same time.
Heading either to the Lapworth Museum of Geology or the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, the young people were tasked with finding the answers to questions about the attractions themselves, and the many interesting finds housed within them. Both the Lapworth and Barber teams were extremely successful in locating the answers and supporting each other.
After revealing answers and reflecting on the skills used in the scavenger hunt, it was time to find out more about the upcoming trip to the Raymond Priestly Centre, reflect upon the day and share kind words about each other’s mental skills and strengths. The Raymond Priestly Centre is an outdoor education centre in the Lake Distract, UK and offers the perfect opportunity to practice mental skills and teamwork in a new environment. It offers an exciting variety of outdoor adventure activities from gorge walking, to canoeing and mountain walking to help individuals work together as a team and tap into their mental strengths. We wish this year’s cohort a wonderful trip up to the Centre and look forward to hearing all about it upon their return.
Here's what some members of the Youth Voice had to say about the day:
“I didn’t really know what I was expecting, in my head I imagined we’d just discuss the trip & that’s it, but I had such a lovely experience & we delved into so much more than just our trip to Coniston. we explored our mental strengths & weaknesses, got to know each other more & most importantly we all joined in! at one point in the day I felt really burnt out & exhausted, so I didn’t join in on a scavenger hunt activity that was put together for us, but the staff at the university made sure I still felt included. we had beautiful conversations about life & growing up & how mentality & good mental health is a crucial factor when it comes to adulting. I left feeling so much more aware of my own emotions & my outlook on life. I’m excited to go to the lake district & put my mental skills to work!!” - Kodie – YAB Member
“Young people that engage in St Basils often have low self-esteem and have not had the opportunity to be seen, heard and valued so engagement can be a difficult thing. This is why My Strengths Training for Life™ (MST4Life™) has been built into our Engagement Structures so young people can work as a team and individually to overcome personal and group challenges and support St Basil to be the best we can be through their Engagement on the Youth Advisory Board.
The first part of The MST program was held at the University with Grace, Sally and Georgia, young people spent time working on the strength profile and identifying strengths needed when they are at Coniston – Young people then went on Safari around campus following instructions and working as a team to complete the challenge. I can’t wait to see young people develop their personal and group strengths next month at Coniston on this life changing adventure. I know that the impact this course will have on young people will be life changing.” - Tamzin Reynolds-Rosser, National Youth Engagement Manger.
Interested in learning more about our collaborative work with St Basils? Check out Projects pages here, where you can learn all about our MST4Life™ Project.
If you’d like to go to the Lapworth Museum of Geology and Barber Institute of Fine Arts, you can take a trip to the University of Birmingham campus. Both attractions are free for everyone to access.
Image credit: Dr Georgia Bird and Tamzin Reynolds-Rosser, Youth Voice.
Written by Dr Sally Reynard and Dr Grace Tidmarsh.
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