Our activities and impact

Make (Good) Trouble (MGT) works alongside a diverse range of young people and families, opening up new paths of access to professional and peer support for mental health and emotional wellbeing. During the year, we were still seeing the after-effects of the pandemic, as well as the cost of living crisis, with mental ill health in young people continuing to rise. 

A report from The Prince’s Trust published in January 2023 concluded that “the overall wellbeing of 16–25-year-olds has flatlined, remaining at the lowest point in [the report’s] fourteen-year history, with young people least happy and confident in their money and mental health.” It adds that 46% of young people feel hopeless about the future, a number that rises to 55% for those from poorer backgrounds. 

Over this year, MGT has pursued projects that support young people, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds and those with special educational needs, to improve their skills and confidence, reduce social isolation, and promote wellbeing. 

MGT on the road

In March 2022, we were awarded a capital grant from Children in Need with which we purchased a van and new equipment to create a mobile workshop.

Thanks to our friends at Barclays Eagle Lab in Brighton, the van has our company logo and web address emblazoned on the sides and front, helping to publicise our work. The MGT van has enabled us to expand our detached media production work and helps us to offer opportunities to young people, wherever they are, to learn new skills and use equipment and technology they may not have had the chance to use elsewhere. This will help us to meet our aims of improving the outlook for children and young people living in areas of low income and deprivation, and reduce social isolation of at-risk children with more regular contact, enabling the building of friendships by safely widening their contact with other young people through structured workshops and activities,

The mobile unit will be operational year-round, without limitations of fixed time periods, venue hire and restricted access due to affordability (such as children’s travel costs to fixed venues). 

Team training

In April, members of our team had training in Most Significant Change (MSC) methodology as part of the preparation for The Catalyst programme for ESCC (see below). It is a qualitative evaluation technique that fits with Make (Good) Trouble’s ethos of putting young peoples’ and families’ voices at the heart of any intervention and programme. We believe that MSC is a strong evaluation tool that can help inform the future direction and effectiveness of a programme based on direct learning from participants. 

Make (Good) Trouble is accredited on the Badge Nation scheme, and we awarded over 100 Digital Badges to young people across the South East of England.

All the projects we have been involved with this year have helped to further our goal of improving wellbeing and outcomes for young people and families. They have helped us to highlight the issues that affect young people, and provided them with a platform to share their views and have a say in initiatives that would affect their future.

Raising Teens

Raising Teens Facebook Group

We continued to support parents and young people through our Facebook group. The group has become instrumental in helping us to reach families who need help.

Group membership rose to just under 2,000 from 41 different countries. The group had 1.4 posts a day on average (10 a week), with 73% from people in East Sussex.

Holiday Activities and Food programme (HAF) for East Sussex County Council

Easter and Summer Clubs

Make (Good) Trouble ran clubs and activities over Easter and Summer 2022, commissioned by East Sussex County Council (ESCC). We provided young people in East Sussex with a safe, enriching environment in which to play, learn and unwind. Our clubs, planned and run by young people, were free for children in receipt of benefits-related free school meals. Make (Good) Trouble is one of very few clubs that offers places to the older age-range that includes teenagers. We partnered with South Downs National Park to offer outdoor activities. 

Our HAF clubs gave children the opportunity to make good memories, during one of the most uncertain times in recent history. Attendees learnt valuable transferable skills in media production, team building and hands-on learning helping to improve their confidence. Our club was featured on BBC South Today news with young participants interviewed about how the club was helping them during the cost of living crisis. 

Feedback

“You’re trying something new and you’re not just sat at home watching TV because that’s what I’d usually be doing right now. It’s just a great way to make new friends. It’s just so amazing.” Attendee feedback

“My mum was saying would you go back, and I was like yeah definitely I was like I really want to go back.” Attendee feedback

“Yeah I’m happy to be here. I just wish it could last longer though to be honest.” Attendee feedback 

“It’s wonderful for me to know he’s out, having fun and he’s safe. It’s such a weight off my shoulders. I love seeing him go off in the morning, looking forward to the day and then he comes home tired but smiling. For me that’s everything.” Parent feedback

HAF peer-led review and evaluation 

Make (Good) Trouble carried out a peer-led review of East Sussex County Council’s Holiday Activity and Food programme. Our team visited 10 HAF Clubs across East Sussex over Easter, summer and winter 2022. Using our peer-led approach, our young producers recorded audio interviews with children aged between four and 16, as well as parents and carers, service providers and youth workers. The report, written for the council and the Department for Education, looked at how young people and families’ wellbeing was supported by the HAF programme; the effectiveness of club activities and nutrition; and how easy it is for families to access services. We also reviewed how providers were supported in setting up and administering clubs as well as whether budgets met needs, and what clubs might need for future provision. 

We found that clubs are providing a lifeline for families and are going above and beyond to offer a broad spectrum of high-quality activities for young people. 

“It just gives me somewhere to go to be with my friends. It’s all organised for us so we don’t have to worry about it. It’s all planned, and all my friends are here, it’s just really good fun.”  HAF child participant interviewed by Make (Good) Trouble.

“The club is incredibly important to him. He goes to special needs school and has had a lot of bullying so doesn’t go out much or socialise with anyone from school or his own age, so for him to feel safe and know he can just be himself is massive. He trusts all the staff and looks forward to seeing everyone. It’s lovely for me to know he’s safe. He never comes home sad, always with a smile on his face.” HAF parent interviewed by Make (Good) Trouble

The Catalyst

In May 2022 we began work on The Catalyst, a two-year creative programme commissioned by East Sussex County Council (ESCC) Public Health as part of their ‘Creative Health. programme. The Catalyst’s aim is to build local young people’s personal and cultural wellbeing; develop creative and digital skills and insights into professional practice; reduce loneliness and isolation through the development of a creative network and thriving peer community; and evaluate the programme and contribute to the growing evidence base on the benefits of the arts to improve health and wellbeing.

The programme runs to autumn 2024 and invites young people to explore, create and debate in structured workshops across East Sussex where they can work with artists, photographers, film makers, and sound designers, and sign up for a mentor who will offer career and wellbeing support and advice. The programme is free and open to anyone aged 12 to 24 living in East Sussex.

Beach Walks

In May and June 2022, we hosted a series of accessible community-support beach walks in Brighton & Hove, for parents and carers of teenagers. After lockdown, many were reporting issues of isolation and feeling unable to cope. We got together for a walk, a coffee and a chat with professionals who are experts in teen-related issues which included eating disorders, LGBTQ+ issues, conflicts at home and more. 

We hosted Facebook Live Q&A sessions which gave parents who couldn’t make the walks a wealth of practical tips and information on helping young people with everything from anxiety to sleep and tools to reduce anxiety and stress.

Most parents and carers who attended the walks had issues affecting their own mental health. The programme had four main beneficial outcomes: reducing social isolation, exercising, access to one-to-one expert support, and peer support. The selection of experts was driven by need, and included a Senior Assistant Head Teacher, a Safeguarding Lead, and representatives from Relate, RU OK, AllSorts and The Trust for Developing Communities (TDC).

One parent recently moved to Brighton to get her SEND child into a specialist school. This meant she was now living far away from the rest of her family, and as a result was suffering from isolation. The walks allowed her to get one-to-one help from experts and meet new local parents and carers on a regular basis.

One grandparent who attended all beach walks told us the programme allowed her to begin the process of addressing what she described as “Pandemic agoraphobia”. Being outside in small numbers allowed her to “ease back into the busy world”. She was also able to get trusted advice in relation to her grandchild who has issues with substance misuse and school avoidance.

A WhatsApp support group, managed by MGT, was created for every beach walk participant, providing a private, safe space for signposting services and to share support. Feedback from members was extremely positive. “The beach walk was instrumental in getting me to where I am now!” – Parent feedback via WhatsApp.

“I was going through a cycle of distress regarding my son’s education and lack of SENCO support and saw on the ‘Raising Teens’ Facebook Group you were offering Beach Walks and at the time I just needed to get out the house, I was exhausted, frustrated and felt alone. I needed to speak to people and stop driving myself mad on my own.

“The expert attending was a head teacher from a local secondary school which was brilliant. She gave me honesty that I hadn’t heard from any other teachers. That conversation allowed me to have the knowledge I needed to feel I could go back to his school and find solutions. Now he’s finally getting the support he needs.

“Before, I was in crisis mode, so my head was all over the place. This gave me a reason to get some exercise and fresh air. I loved being bought a coffee! It was so lovely to meet new people and feel valued.” (Parent, Beach Walk programme)

The Rez for the University of Sussex

MGT collaborated with the University of Sussex  to produce workshops working with primary school pupils. These workshops were designed to research the impact of ‘The Rez’ podcast and comic, which were created to support the transition to secondary school and open up discussions around kindness and friendships. Three Comic Strip Workshops were delivered at Chesswood School, Worthing, Attenborough Centre, Leicester, and Stanford Middle School, Brighton.

Make (Good) Trouble was integral in delivering the design and development of new teaching guide and school lesson plans for Key Stage 2, which was awarded the PSHE Quality Mark for teaching resources in October 2022. Since achieving the Quality Mark, the guide has been shared with the PSHE Association’s national network of teachers and schools. The guides are designed to create a safe and engaging learning environment in which to teach about kindness and communication. More than 1,500 comics have also been distributed, with a second print run to meet demand. 

Goal Power

Make (Good) Trouble was involved in a project to support a new exhibition at the Brighton Museum and Art Gallery in the summer of 2022. Goal Power! Women’s Football, 1894-2022 coincided with the UK hosting the UEFA Women’s EURO 2022. Brighton was one of the host cities with matches being played at the AMEX stadium in July.

As part of a programme of creative activities running at the Museum, Make (Good) Trouble worked alongside photographic artist and facilitator Lindsey Smith, to help seven young female players create a podcast about their love of football. We trained them in interview techniques and how to use audio equipment. The young players, aged between 12 and 14, interviewed each other, legends of the game, and those working in and playing football today. The resulting podcast series which explored the benefits of football for girls and some of the barriers they have faced, was included in Brighton Museum’s exhibition, on their website, and was featured on BBC Radio Sussex and Surrey. Titled ‘Goal Power’, the podcast series gives us real insights into what it was like to be a player in the 1960s and 1970s, and shows how the game is changing for women involved in it today. 

Covid Vaccine take-up research project for BHCC

Public Health, Brighton and Hove Council (BHCC) asked us to carry out research to better understand why so many young people in the area hadn’t had a Covid vaccine. Make (Good) Trouble’s Young Story Collectors carried out individual interviews with ten young people aged between 16 and 18, and ten parents and carers who told us about the experiences of deciding whether to get the vaccine for their children, and what it was like for those who got the Coivid jab. 

We set up relaxed one-to-one sessions for parents and young people to gather their views.  

Our report used the stories from parents and young people to inform Public Health about the issues around why so many local young people were refusing or not bothering to get the vaccine. It covered their views, government messaging, the polarised debates on the issue, where they found information, as well as the practicalities of getting the vaccine in schools, walk-in centres or at GP surgeries. 

Talks and business networks

In March 2022, MGT co-founder Daisy Cresswell featured on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Past Forward: A Century of Sound programme called Teen Age’, discussing the work Make (Good) Trouble do and her past experiences of being a teen, and of being a mum to teens today.

Make (Good) Trouble’s Lola Ray was invited to speak at The Power of Courage: Women in Leadership conference organised by Dorset Police. Lola talked about Make (Good) Trouble’s work and about her experiences on safety, trauma, and the police. 

How we involve stakeholders in what we do

MGT’s stakeholders are the young people we work with and parents and guardians. The young people involved in every project we run are co-creators, and we hold discussions with them and their families to inform projects from inception to delivery. The projects are focused on improving their wellbeing and based on their needs.

Listening to our stakeholders is central to the work we do. At our HAF holiday clubs, we asked our young attendees to come up with the rules they would abide by at the club. The Beach Walks gave us a great opportunity to hear from parents and professionals to better understand their needs. Our Raising Teens Facebook group, which is managed solely by MGT now stands at just under 2,000 members, and we use it to reach parents and carers from the local community and further afield. It helps us to catch concerns early, such as school refusals, teen anxiety, and finances. These concerns and issues are fed into ideas for future projects, for example, series 5 of Raising Teens, due out early 2024.

Stakeholders are also youth workers, professionals, teachers and public health teams. We have been involved in consultations with Local Authorities (East Sussex, West Sussex and Brighton & Hove) on a regular basis as well as through our school and FE college networks. These consultations have resulted in new project development as well as support and advice for vulnerable communities and families in Brighton & Hove, East and West Sussex and beyond.

Our activities and impact

Make (Good) Trouble (MGT) works alongside a diverse range of young people and families, opening up new paths of access to professional support for mental health and emotional wellbeing, during and post-Pandemic. 

All the projects we have been involved with this year have been to further our goal of improving wellbeing and outcomes for young people and families. Our activities have helped us to highlight the issues that affect young people, and many provided them with a platform to share their views and have a say in initiatives that would affect their future.

We were delighted to welcome three young people through the Kickstart scheme to MGT, and we have provided them with employment, mentoring, and vocational training in media production and project management. One of these placements is now a part-time member of staff. The Kickstart scheme is provided by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) and Brighton & Hove County Council, and run by Brighton Dome & Brighton Festival (BDBF). It provided paid work placements for 16 to 24-year-olds claiming Universal Credit. MGT is one of 20 local organisations offering over 80 work placements in the arts, publishing, PR, digital media and other creative opportunities. 

“Being a part of this Kickstart job has given me so many more opportunities than I thought I would get with other jobs. I feel like I’m able to be a lot more creative with the support of my colleagues and get exciting opportunities to work with young people. Working on the Holiday Activities and Food project for Make (Good) Trouble has made me realise how important youth is for young people, they need a safe space to be allowed to just be themselves with no judgement and have their basic needs met that they might not get at home. It is definitely the sort of enrichment that would’ve helped me when I was young, it’s also really rewarding being there for those kids that need a role model to talk to. Covid has halted so much development and opportunities, it’s great to be part of something that is making an actual difference and helping young people get back out and trying new things.” – Hamzah Ali, Kickstart employee, Dec 2021

We continued to build on our post-lockdown work, supporting families and young people. In December, we moved into an office in Brighton so that our team could work together face-to-face after the isolation of lockdown

Make (Good) Trouble is accredited on the Digital Badges scheme as part of the Brighton Cities of Learning programme, and we awarded 63 Digital Badges to young people across the South East of England.

Raising Teens

We continued developing our Raising Teens brand this year, which aims to help parents and young people to understand each other better and to raise awareness of issues that matter most to young people. The brand includes: a closed Facebook group to support parents, a series of Facebook live-streamed Q&As, and a fourth series of our popular BBC radio show.

Raising Teens Facebook Group

We continued to support parents and young people, post lockdown, with families facing issues coming out of the pandemic, a rise in child anxiety and concerns about going back to school.

Group membership rose to over 1,700 from 41 different countries. The group had 1.4 posts a day on average (10 a week), with 73% from people in East Sussex.

Raising Teens BBC radio show

Series four of our BBC radio show, Raising Teens, aired in February 2022. This series looked at issues around safety, drugs and pressure at home. It was broadcast on BBC Radio Sussex and Surrey every Monday in February 2022, and supported by Sussex Police. 

Raising Teens is a warm-hearted and honest round-table discussion about parenting teenagers and teen mental health. First broadcast on BBC Radio Sussex and BBC Radio Surrey, in 2019, the show is hosted by presenter Guy Lloyd and includes teens’ own stories from Make (Good) Trouble’s young reporter Lola Ray, with additional reporting from our Kickstart employees Xenith Pocknell and Hamzah Ali. Lola’s teen stories are surprising, thought provoking and often delightful. The show aims to bring parents, carers, experts – everyone involved in raising teens – together to dispel myths around teen mental health and offer practical help and tips.  

Raising Teens Facebook Lives: Q&As Families and Alcohol 

Our series of Raising Teens Facebook Live discussions about alcohol and how it affects families was developed in association with Brighton & Hove’s Back on Track service, which offers support for families when a parent is drinking too much.

We were joined by practitioners from RU-OK? and Oasis Project as well as those directly affected by issues with alcohol addiction.

·       Teen drinking

·       The impact of parental drinking

·       Conflict and language around alcohol in families

Well known guests Dave Wilson aka Sober Dave, and NACOA ambassador Josh Connolly spoke to us for the live streamed Q&As. 

The 4 livestreamed Q&As reached over 16,300 people and generated over 11,500 engagements.

Trauma-informed approaches to working with young people: Training

Working with partner Oasis Project, we developed a brand new virtual training course for professionals working across Sussex. This course helps to educate and inform professionals about trauma-informed practice by increasing awareness, promoting best practice and offering ways to support young people.

Topics include understanding adverse childhood experiences, how trauma affects the brain, intersectionality in practice, working with families and vicarious trauma and self care.

We’re really proud of our youth-led team who collected trauma recovery narratives from young people, co-produced filming, editing and animating.

The course had 370 sign-ups between January and February 2022 from professionals across Sussex and beyond.

Participant feedback:

“I have done a number of introductory courses on trauma-informed practice and ACE’s but felt the filmed conversations and inclusion of young people’s experience particularly helpful. I felt the training was practical and informative. This was excellent training that I have already recommended to colleagues.”

“I found the conversational style videos with the short clips from young people really helpful, it was enough of a change of pace to keep me engaged. I also felt that the facilitators showed real empathy while still being professional and educational while discussing very difficult situations.”

“The length was fantastic and the pace was really engaging. I enjoyed the diversity of voices and inclusion of young people’s experiences was so powerful.”

“Inclusion of young people’s experience was very moving and made it very real. Breaking it into sections was helpful. Good selection of people conducting the conversations.”

“I think this is a credible introductory course and I hope more teachers access it – I think this could transform classrooms and the lives of young people.”

Holiday Activities and Food programme (HAF) for East Sussex County Council

Summer and Christmas Clubs

Make (Good) Trouble joined the Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme and ran clubs and activities over Summer and Christmas 2021, commissioned by East Sussex County Council, providing young people in East Sussex with a safe, enriching environment in which to play, learn and unwind. There was a focus on active learning and nutrition with children and young people making food together. 

Our Summer and Christmas Club provided fun and creative Media Production sessions led by young people. They put those skills to the test when they interviewed Children’s Minister, Vicky Ford and Children’s Commissioner for EnglandDame Rachel de Souza for a feature on ITV News Meridian. We also created a news feature for BBC Radio Sussex & Surrey created by our young reporter with interviews by children from our club. They discussed the importance of the club and the support of the HAF scheme.

The young makers who attend our clubs were awarded Digital badges for their CV on completion of this project. Make (Good) Trouble is a partner of the RSA Cities of Learning programme, designed to provide practical pathways to employment. In 2020 we awarded 54 Cities Of Learning Digital Badges, accredited by City and Guilds, to young people across the South East. 

Feedback for MGT’s Holiday Clubs

“Amazing. Thank you so much” Parent feedback, December 2021

“I’m gonna miss everyone a lot, including the grown ups!” Attendee feedback, Summer 2021

“I’ve been coming for the whole summer (4 weeks), I was meant to go on holiday but decided to stay at the club instead.” Attendee feedback, Summer 2021

“He came home happy every day and I can’t thank you enough for that.” Parent feedback Summer 2021

“I think the fact that there was a taxi offer was incredible for me, because I’m disabled. So though, I do have a car, driving up and down and up and down, that’d be four trips for me, it would be a lot. So that’s been an incredible bit of funding.” Parent feedback, Summer 2021

“She’s got lots of things to tell me at the end of the day – the fact that she’s been trying new things, particularly the photography because she’s been talking about wanting to do GCSE photography forever and I’ve been a bit like, okay, I don’t know where that’s come from. So the fact that she’s had an opportunity to try this out for herself and has just loved it is really, really great, because it could be more than a hobby for her.” Parent feedback, Summer 2021

HAF peer-led review and evaluation 

Make (Good) Trouble visited HAF Clubs across East Sussex in December. Using our peer-led approach, our young producers recorded audio interviews with children aged between four and 16, as well as parents, carers, providers and youth workers. The report, written for the council and the Department for Education, importantly elevated the youth voice and set out recommendations to help improve and streamline provision, including ways to raise awareness of the programme, and encourage the sharing of expertise and information among Club providers. Many of our recommendations are now being implemented. 

“To be honest with you, when this last Club is over, I’ll be pretty sad because I like coming here.” HAF child participant interviewed by Make (Good) Trouble.

Make (Good) Trouble created a special film celebrating the success and demonstrating the positive impact of the Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme in East Sussex over the summer of 2021.

“The peer-led review of the Holiday, Activity and Food (HAF) programme have been incredibly valuable to demonstrate the value of the project. By working collaboratively with activity providers and speaking directly to the young people and their families, Make Good Trouble were able to capture the wide ranging positive impacts of the programme. Alongside each report, Make Good Trouble also created a short celebratory film, incorporating photos, videos and audio testimony from young people who attended. These films were able to capture the positive impact on young people’s physical and mental health and have proved a valuable tool to promote the programme to schools and other local organisations.

“As 2021 was the first year of HAF provision in East Sussex, it was incredibly important to be able to capture what had worked well but also identify areas for improvement to inform planning for future delivery. This became particularly important for Winter provision as by then the programme had been funded for 3 more years. The recommendations from the reviews, shared with both the HAF internal working group and external partnership advisory group, have been instrumental in helping to set the direction the HAF programme will take in 2022 and beyond.” – Ben Baker, HAF Programme Project Manager, Equality and Participation Team, Children’s Services, East Sussex County Council (Feb 2022)

VRU Podcast in partnership with The Trust for Developing communities

In July, we worked with the Trust for Developing Communities, a local youth work charity, and a group of teenagers from Brighton & Hove to create a series of podcasts. Created during the Covid lockdown, the teenagers discussed youth violence in their city with Sussex Police officers. 

Titled ‘We Ain’t the Same’, the series explores the relationship between young people and the police. It was launched on Spotify in July 2021.

This project was also supported by the Sussex Violence Reduction Partnership.

The Rez for the University of Sussex

Make (Good) Trouble was commissioned to create and distribute content to raise awareness of The Rez, a comic book and podcast series developed by UK Comic Book Laureate Hannah Berry and a team of writers and psychologists, including Robin Banerjee, Professor of Kindness and Head of Psychology at University of Sussex. 

The Rez contains pro-social and emotional well-being messaging about friendship and kindness, designed to help young people prepare to negotiate emotional difficulties and stresses.

We developed a one-day focus group for the University of Sussex, inviting primary age children to assess the effectiveness of The Rez. For our focus groups, we put together fun, interactive and creative sessions to discover what children think. We conduct interviews with children (in groups or on their own, whatever they are comfortable with) as well as taking photographs of the children which may be used for research and promotion, with permission.  

For The Rez, we distributed 220 comics and 20 T-shirts to schools across Sussex. We created targeted social media content to support the launch of The Rez, organising a one-day photoshoot to generate images and video of young people reading the comic, and discussing why they felt it was important to them.

We also began work on a PHSE submission, developing school lesson plans to encourage schools to engage with the messages in The Rez. This work is in progress.

Back on Track foreign language films for Oasis Project

We have worked with charity Oasis Project to create a series of foreign language films aimed to help those affected by problems with alcohol. The videos were aimed to help parents affected by problems with alcohol and created in Russian, Polish and Hungarian. 

Talks and business networks

We have participated in and contributed to talks and local business networking activities with the aim of forging strong links with the community. Founder Daisy Cresswell has given talks at Brighton Chamber and Barclays Eagle Labs events.

How we involve stakeholders in what we do

We have continued to work closely with our stakeholders who are the young people we work with, as well as local parents and guardians. Our work is focused on their needs, and is designed by and for them. Young people are co-creators, and discussions with them and families are integral to every project. 

Make (Good) Trouble’s peer-to-peer model means that we train young co-creators in how to ask ‘clean questions’, Mental Heath First Aid, and media production skills. We involve them in all parts of the creative process, including coming up with new project initiatives. They have been actively involved in every project from inception to delivery. 

“Interviewing children in the HAF Easter Project with Make (Good) Trouble was a really eye-opening experience for me. I was able to see a side of life that I had been somewhat sheltered from previously, and although it upsets me still that millions of children across the UK don’t have the same level of access to food and activities like I did growing up, I was so happy to see the benefit the HAF programme had on them. They all clearly loved it, and were taking part in things they wouldn’t be able to normally. I’m so grateful to Make (Good) Trouble for letting me work alongside them, and feel genuinely proud of this project that helps kids in such a way.”  – Amelie Anastasakis (15), East Sussex Youth Cabinet April 2021

Parents and guardians have been a big focus for 2021/2 post-lockdown, and as we come out of the pandemic. We have listened through social media and other listening initiatives, for example the Raising Teens in Lockdown Facebook group, which we manage entirely ourselves. This has been an excellent platform for picking up on concerns early – for example anxiety in young people, drug use and schooling. We regularly post questions about concerns, and often parents and young people will offer their own views and thoughts.

Stakeholders are also youth workers and teachers and public health teams. We have been involved in consultations with Local Authorities (East Sussex, West Sussex and Brighton & Hove) on a regular basis as well as through our school and FE college networks. These consultations have resulted in new project development as well as support and advice for vulnerable communities and families in Brighton & Hove, East and West Sussex and beyond.

Our activities and impact

Make (Good) Trouble (MGT) works alongside a diverse range of young people and families, opening up new paths of access to professional support for mental health and emotional wellbeing. 

The Covid pandemic restricted our ability to continue our work to support families and young people. During lockdown, as schools closed and education moved to the home, parents and children struggled with a variety of mental health issues such as isolation, family conflict and anxiety. Our focus  shifted to creating a safe space for our growing network of parents, carers and young people to communicate with professional and relevant charity groups through online platforms, for example through our Facebook Group ‘Raising Teens in Lockdown’ which attracted 1.7k local members within 3 months of launching. 

By the end of March 2020, the majority of our work was carried out remotely. 

Over the year, we developed strong relationships with a network of local charities and community groups including Albion in the Community, Audio Active, CAPA, Dad La Soul, East Sussex Youth Cabinet, Football Beyond Borders, NACOA, Oasis Project, Relate, RU_OK?, the Trust for Developing Communities, Winston’s Wish, and the YMCA.

Our work provided an essential bridge between struggling families and Local Authorities, Sussex Police, the OSPCC, CCG and other services.

Make (Good) Trouble is accredited on the Digital Badges scheme as part of the Brighton Cities of Learning programme, and we awarded 54 Digital Badges to young people across the South East of England

In February 2020, we joined the Brighton Kickstart scheme put together by Brighton Dome & Brighton Festival (BDBF), working together with Future Creators. It allows us to provide a young person with reliable employment and offer vocational training in media production. MGT is one of 20 local organisations offering over 80 work placements in the arts, publishing, PR, digital media and other creative opportunities. Future Creators will facilitate the scheme, working with local businesses and organisations to provide paid work placements for 16 to 24-year-olds claiming Universal Credit.

Belong

Make (Good) Trouble worked in partnership with The Office of Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner (OSPCC) and education consultants, Changing Chances, to deliver an evidence-based phase of project BELONG. Its aims are to empower vulnerable children, most likely to be excluded from school, by helping them learn how to regulate their emotions and reduce the risk of becoming victims or perpetrators of serious violence.

This was part of the OSPCC’s REBOOT programme, a non-criminal pathway providing direct intervention support for young people aged between 10-17, where a risk has been identified of them being drawn into crime and violence. Starting in November 2019 and finishing in March 2020, Make (Good) Trouble carried out weekly interactive workshops delivered in four stages; Listen, Coach, Analyse and Acknowledge. A safe creative space gave young people the chance to speak about their experiences and learn about the teenage brain, including strategies for managing their own emotions.

In March 2020, the pilot phase of BELONG ended and we held a celebratory event where participants were given certificates and screened a film about the project. Sixteen young co-creators and their families attended to celebrate their part in the project which aimed to empower vulnerable children, most likely to be excluded from school, by helping them learn how to regulate their emotions and reduce the risk of becoming victims or perpetrators of serious violence. 

In its first year of launching, the REBOOT programme successfully deterred 823 young people away from becoming victims or perpetrators of serious violence.

Our sessions had 90% attendance from the 16 young co-creators on the project and generated 24 hours of recorded research. Twelve digital badges were issued to participants. BELONG’s incredible 90% attendance was due to building trust over time.  Participants felt safe, were helped with transport and, importantly, offered food (some hadn’t eaten all day).  All de-identified outputs were shared with the OSPCC and the local authority for shared learning. 

“I feel like it takes a lot of stress away…makes you feel less anxious, more energetic, really happy and accepted.” BELONG co-creator, aged 12 

“It makes everyone understand what’s happening in our brains and how it makes us act towards other people. I’ve really thought about what we did last week and I think it really helped me understand my feelings a lot better and how to put them into words.” BELONG co-creator, aged 14

Raising Teens

We extended our Raising Teens brand this year to include a dedicated, closed Facebook group called Raising Teens in Lockdown, a direct response to the pandemic, and series of Facebook live-streaming Q&As, as well a fourth series of our BBC radio show. The brand aims to help parents and young people to understand each other better and to raise awareness of issues that matter most to young people.

Raising Teens in Lockdown Facebook Group

At the beginning of Lockdown, we quickly reacted to the fast-growing concerns of parents and young people about their mental health, their education and their family relationships. This closed Facebook group offers families a supportive and safe space to ask questions, share their concerns and receive help and advice from their peers as well as our network of experts, from local police to trained therapists, educational specialists and psychologists. Within a month the Facebook group attracted over a thousand members, 80% of whom are active daily contributors. Fifty percent of members are from Brighton & Hove, with many others from East and West Sussex, London, Leeds, Southampton, Manchester, Cardiff and Leicester, as well as other countries such as the USA, Canada, Australia, Ireland, South Africa, Germany, Italy and Spain.

Raising Teens BBC radio show

Series three of our BBC radio show, Raising Teens, was recorded entirely remotely in spring 2020 by the whole team – a first for BBC Radio Sussex and for MGT. The series covered issues that were at the forefront of teen and parent concerns: Pandemic Anxiety, Home Schooling and Education in Lockdown, Separated Parenting in Lockdown and Domestic Violence, all crucial issues around surviving lockdown, the pandemic, and its effect on family mental health. 

This Raising Teens radio show delved deeper into the parent-teen relationship in lockdown and provided practical, expert advice to parents, carers and teenagers, helping them to navigate the challenges during the coronavirus crisis. The series aired between 20 May and 10 June 2020 and is available on BBC Sounds. 

Raising Teens Facebook Lives

MGT held a series of live-streamed Q&As on Facebook with professionals including educationalists, Sussex Police, charities, psychologists and therapists covering issues about schooling, policing in lockdown, drug use, parenting, anxiety, conflict, safety and male mental health. Each of our Facebook Live Q&As averaged over 5K views and 23K reach.

• Concerns about weed and drugs, with Sussex Reboot youth counsellor Carl Scott, PC Joe Davis from Sussex Police, Luci Hammond from RU-OK?  and Toby Chown from Oasis Project
• Men’s Mental Health, with Carl Scott from Reboot Sussex, Glen Wiseman from. YMCA Downslink Group and Lee Hines from East Sussex College
• Learning from home, with Darren Abrahams
• Dealing with conflict, with Kit Messenger from Changing Chances
• Helping at risk young people, with Reboot Sussex
• Anxiety in teens and coping strategies, with Kit Messenger from Changing Chances 
• Keeping teens safe, with PC Joe Davis
• Back to school, with Sussex Community Foundation Trust sleep expert, Lara Rutherford and YMCA e-wellbeing‘s Nicola Harvey
• Exams and education, with education specialist Jo Harvey

We Are Poppy

MGT’s First World War project, funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, explored the mental health and wellbeing of women during WW1. This was part of the First World War Centenary. There has been a huge focus on the effect of shellshock on men in WW1 but scant information available about the effect on women’s mental health during that time. Working with a team of young co-creators from Hove Park School, plus academics and mental health professionals, our project aimed to uncover the lives of women affected and to create new narratives which will look at how mental health was perceived then in comparison with today.  

With lockdown, all our face-to-face workshops were abruptly stopped and planned trips to museums and archives had to be shelved. Our whole project switched to one that was developed and delivered online. We expanded our project team to include young people from the East Sussex Youth Cabinet – all our co-creators were 14 years-old. We altered plans to make a film of the project’s progress and findings and switched to create an audio podcast. 

We met for workshops on Video conference calls, used WhatsApp and email to catch up and organise team meetings and recorded interviews remotely using our experience of making our lockdown radio series, Raising Teens. The adaptation to digital only formats created new opportunities for our young co-creators. They were able to share their story with a much wider audience than originally envisaged.

Our co-creators developed a podcast and website, www.wearepoppy.org, which included audio interviews with historians and experts in trauma therapy, and a podcast that dramatized the experience of women’s experiences during the First World War. The team’s enthusiasm, intelligence and ability to get involved and have a go at interviewing, recording, writing and presenting pieces for the podcast – all done remotely – was outstanding.

Our young co-creators were interviewed live on BBC Radio Sussex and BBC Radio Surrey, talking about how they developed the project in lockdown. The podcast was aired on the same stations in full on Remembrance Day, November 2020. 

The project was promoted on the Imperial War Museum blog, which you can read here.

“Nobody seemed to remember that women had been affected too. Nurses working on the front lines saw terrible things. Women at home had their houses destroyed and workers in ammunition factories often had life-changing injuries.” Daisy, 14, We Are Poppy co-creator

“I feel like it’s opened my mind more than it would have been because we don’t learn much about women in our lessons in history. The project really expanded my view of what women were doing and how women felt in the First World War.” Arielle, 14, We Are Poppy co-creator

“Just imagining her as a real person helps with empathy, putting myself in her shoes because usually you just hear about these people from the olden days and you think, ‘oh that’s a bit sad’, but when you imagine them as real people, you can put yourself in their shoes, see how they were feeling and really imagine what they were going through. I knew about the men and their shellshock and how mental health wasn’t such a well-known thing back then, so how they were all discovering what that was but it hadn’t even occurred to me that the women would get shellshock or PTSD from working on the frontline.” Amelie, 14, We Are Poppy co-creator

Brighton Streets Conference 

In March, our young people interviewed attendees to the Brighton Streets Conference, creating an edited video giving the organisers and visitors to the event qualitative feedback about speakers and discussions to reduce violence in the city. 

CAPA First Response

We worked with charity CAPA (Child and Adolescent to Parent Abuse) First Response to create a series of social media assets that raise awareness of the issues around child to parent abuse. 

East Sussex County Council and East Sussex Youth Cabinet 

We hosted and edited a series of webinar films for East Sussex County Council and the East Sussex Youth Cabinet on the subject of returning to school after lockdown, with the aim of allaying fears and concerns from parents and young people.

Other initiatives included:

• Radio Reverb – interviews with Make (Good) Trouble founder, Daisy Cresswell about young people’s mental health, January 2020
• BBC South East Today  feature about our Facebook Group, Raising Teens in Lockdown, April 2020
• Interviews with Children’s Commissioner for England – MGT’s young reporter, Lola Ray, interviewed Anne Longfield about her role as Children’s Commissioner for England and what she aimed to do for young people in lockdown. Lola and a team of young MGT volunteers were invited back to answer Anne’s questions in a follow up video, June & July 2020 
• ‘Extraordinary’ short film – Make (Good) Trouble teamed up with Storythings to make this film especially for Year 11s who missed out on their final months of secondary school and prom. The film features a new poem, ‘Extraordinary’ by Brighton Festival guest director Lemn Sissay MBE, together with messages from local schools. The film was made by Storythings and Make (Good) Trouble with support from Brighton Dome & Brighton Festival and Brighton & Hove Music & Arts, August 2020
• Interview on BBC Radio Sussex with Sussex Police to talk about Sussex Police’s initiative to reduce knife crime, October 2020
• Guest blog posts – including posts from young people around the Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020, the effects of social media, and advice about cannabis.
• Video Q&A with Knowso – Daisy Cresswell spoke about MGT to Knowso, a company set up to inspire and help women set up their own businesses. 

At all these events we raised the issues that affect young people, and many provided them with a platform to share their views and have a say in initiatives that would affect their future.

How we involve stakeholders in what we do

Our stakeholders are the young people we work with as well as local parents and guardians. Young people are co-creators on everything Make (Good) Trouble produces and their ideas and opinions drive everything we do. We honed our stakeholder feedback and delivery mechanisms with young people via a peer-to-peer model and trained young co-creators in how to ask ‘clean questions’, Mental Heath First Aid, and media production skills. 

We regularly consult our young co-creators to involve them in all parts of the creative process, including coming up with new project initiatives. They have been actively involved in every project from inception to delivery. 

Parents and guardians have been a big focus for 2020/1 and we have created and manage the Raising Teens in Lockdown Facebook group entirely ourselves. It was part-funded by the  National Lottery Communities Fund. This has been an excellent platform for picking up on concerns early – for example anxiety in young people, drug use and schooling. We also carried out an online survey with our stakeholders asking about their main concerns and issues so we could focus on providing relevant resources and support.  

“This [Facebook] group has been a lifeline to us! Great work, whoever set it up… I’m so grateful to you all for supporting us, sharing your woes and making me realise it’s all normal. What a journey lockdown has been (still is). I really hope the group will stay after? 
 Thank you to all of you” Raising Teens in Lockdown Facebook group member

Stakeholders are also youth workers and teachers and public health teams. We have been involved in consultations with Local Authorities (East Sussex, West Sussex and Brighton & Hove) on a regular basis as well as through our school and FE college networks. These consultations have resulted in new project development as well as support and advice for vulnerable communities and families in Brighton & Hove, East and West Sussex and beyond.