Project X Factor

Beneficiaries: African/Caribbean Adolescences male aged 13-19

Started 2004. A strategic partnership with Beds & Luton Connexion. This project is aimed at improving the life chances and outcomes of young men of African /Caribbean heritage aged 13 plus.  It provides a holistic service taking into account the health, education, social, economic and spiritual welfare of the young men. These young men are at risk and traditionally do not access a wide range of available service. 

The Bedfordshire and Luton Connexions service have provided funding to develop the project which aims to improve the learning and life outcomes of young African, Caribbean and mixed heritage males aged 13-19.

The Luton Primary Care Trust will be providing advice on health, family planning, and a confidential and sensitive sexual health service aimed at young males and females within that community.

Aims Of Project
The project will strive to develop effective co-ordinated strategies to address the needs of the client group on a long-term basis. We will be seeking to raise awareness of the needs of the client group within the community, and to recruit volunteers who could successfully engage the client group within their culture and context.

The Project will be seeking to provide a more effective and holistic approach in addressing the client group's needs.

We will be aiming to create a pathway for ongoing support through the vulnerable teenage years and the transition into adult life, by offering information, advice, guidance and support on career planning, learning options, personal development and social integration.

The Family and Relationship Crisis Centre (FRCC) has appointed a specialist Personal Adviser who is culturally aware of some of the issues concerning the target group and their community. He will work directly and closely with the young people, Schools and their families to help them try to improve their life outcomes.

The Project will be adhering to the eight Connexions principles:

  • Raising aspirations - setting high expectations of every individual.
  • Meeting individual needs - and overcoming barriers to learning.
  • Taking account of the views of young people - individually and collectively, as the new project is developed.
  • Inclusion - keeping young people in mainstream education and training and preventing them moving to the margins of their community.
  • Partnership- agencies collaborating to achieve more for young people, parents and communities, than is achieved by agencies working in isolation.
  • Community involvement and neighbourhood renewal - through the involvement of community mentors and through personal advisers brokering access to local welfare, health, arts, sport and guidance networks.
  • Extending opportunity and equality of opportunity - raising participation and achievement levels for all young people; influencing the availability, suitability and quality of provision and raising awareness of opportunities.
  • Evidence based practice - ensuring that new interventions are based on rigorous research and evaluation into 'what works'.

orking towards improving the life outcomes of African, Caribbean and mixed Heritage Young People in Luton