StreetDoctors news28th April 2023
During our recent birthday celebration on 27th April, celebrating 10 years of StreetDoctors work, we launched our new Strategic Plan 2023-2026, which will propel us in new and exciting directions so we can reach even more young people affected by violence across the UK, a report about our 5 year partnership with Paul Hamlyn Foundation and heard from young people affected by violence.
It is 10 years since StreetDoctors became a charity, during which time we have trained over 25,000 young people to become life savers in their communities. Our fantastic Celebration Evening featured our healthcare volunteers demonstrating our first responder training and a host of inspirational speakers (pictures below).
The Evening was sponsored by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, who also launched their report on the 5 years they have worked with StreetDoctors through their amazing Youth Strategic Investment Fund. We are truly grateful for all their incredibly invaluable support, skilfully helping us to navigate our path from consolidation to sustainability and growth during this time.
[My city] is a warzone. We have PTSD survivors walking around with wounds to prove it. They are not getting the support they need and they are boiling over.
My cousin was 21 when he was murdered. The roads are littered with ‘that’s where so-and-so died’. Where is the support for the friends of the young people who have passed away? My breakdown was the toil of emotions that I didn’t deal with.
These are just two of the painfully frank quotes from young people affected by violence that we talked with during the creation of our new Strategic Plan 2023-2026. For so many young people like them, violence is completely normalised – it is just what you have to deal with as you are growing up.
This exposure to violence is like a virus, it spreads and embeds itself in communities, causing loss of life, multiple life-limiting injuries and inter-generational trauma. Disadvantage, inequality and poverty are key drivers of violence affecting young people and they are being greatly exacerbated by the current cost-of-living crisis and the lasting impacts of the pandemic.
Our mission – to empower young people through training to keep safe, save lives and be part of the solution to street violence – is therefore vital.
Our Strategic Plan 2023-2026 has 3 pillars:
- INTEGRITY
- Continuing to develop our programmes that build young people’s knowledge, confidence and willingness to act to reduce the impact of street violence, alongside our personal development programmes that increase their skills and aspirations.
- IMPACT
- Reaching the young people that need our training the most, by partnering with more youth, education and criminal justice providers. This will increase our impact and ensure our credibility as an influencer and advocate for young people affected by violence.
- INVEST
- Building our foundations so we are a resilient organisation, efficiently organised and well funded, to continue empowering young people through trauma informed practice and improving equality, diversity and inclusivity in all we do.
As we move through 2023 we are all hugely looking forward to making our new strategic plan a reality, with the support of the young people we work with, our healthcare volunteers, our youth partners and our funders. Thank you so much to all our stakeholders, who are the absolute bedrock of all we do.
More photos from the Celebration Evening can be found here. All photos credit: Four Five Six Ward-Tucker