An Oasis for Enfield Young people

Oasis Enfield Youth and Community provision has received a Bronze Youth Mark award for its services to local young people after a peer assessment by young people.

The young people who delivered the assessment found that Oasis has a strong community presence, based on good links with other organisations working with people in the area. Partnerships with organisations like the Enfield Island Youth and Community Trust work to make Enfield a better place for the local community.

Feedback from the young people who go to Oasis youth centres was that staff and young people had very positive relationships.  Young people commented that staff made them feel that they were safe and secure at the centres.

Young people were very clear about how they were expected to behave and had been involved in developing behavioural policy.  This was reinforced by the staff who did not tolerate bad behaviour and created clear boundaries. The strong staff team worked well together and contributed to the positive atmosphere.

Oasis has a steering group of young people who meet every six weeks to make decisions about how the youth clubs should be run.  However, young people were not involved in the overall leadership or governing body of Oasis Enfield and the assessors' key recommendation was that this should be further developed.

Kat Simmonds, from Oasis, Enfield said:

 "The Youth Mark assessors and staff were very professional and were a pleasure to work with.  Their feedback is really helpful as it is specific. We're grateful that they're prepared to work with us to help implement their ideas.  I'm really proud that Youth Mark recognises the strengths of our work too, in particular the quality of relationships staff have with young people.  We have a great team of staff and volunteers who work so hard with the young people, and it's great to have all the hard work recognised with the Youth Mark award.  Without them and our partners the work simply wouldn't be possible."