Lucinda Neall

Breaking the Cycle

2011-10-08T20:25:00.006+01:00

I just spent a week working with a group of people who want to build a better future for themselves. All had difficult life stories. Many had spent time in prison. And, unusually for these courses, the majority were women.I witnessed a lot of honesty and courage this week, a lot of wisdom and support, and an intense desire to bring up their own children to choose a different path. Their stories

Tips for Parents of Younger Boys

2011-03-28T20:06:00.003+01:00

Spend time with other families that have boys and do adventurous, outdoor stuff together (the girls will love it too!) Let boys have time outside after school to blow off steam. Notice when grumpiness - yours and your childrens' - is due to low blood sugar. A snack might be what's needed. Make friends with the parents of your sons' friends. Form a parent study group,

It takes a village ...

2010-09-30T21:02:00.002+01:00

I've just got back from the youth club I help run in the village. I can't get over the change in one of the kids since the summer holidays, let's call him Tom. He was tricky to have around last year, very competitive, not a team player and a bad loser. He invariably got into a fight with one of his friends. His parents were convinced it was always the other boy's fault, we weren't. There was a

Gareth Malone's Extraordinary School for Boys

2010-09-24T13:12:00.002+01:00

In a three-part series on BBC2 Gareth Malone rose to the challenge of raising boys' reading ages in Year's 5 and 6 in an Essex primary school. His approach? To get boys interested by doing things that interest boys, then identify the few who still aren't engaging, find out what motivates them and use that to challenge them to participate. His strategies included lots of exercise, going outdoors,

Black Fatherhood in the 21st Century

2010-06-06T07:57:00.012+01:00

I was recently invited to the House of Commons to the launch of a campaign on Black Fatherhood. The event was hosted by David Lammy MP and the Runnymede Trust. There were about fifty people in the audience, many of whom were involved in groups already doing great work on fatherhood.David told the audience that he had been concerned about fatherhood for many years: his own

Think Long-Term

2010-05-15T12:25:00.012+01:00

Last week I addressed an 'A' Level Citizenship course at Oaklands College, St Albans on community involvement. We looked at the why and what and how of community work, identified areas each student could get involved in locally, and discussed community cohesion and social capital. The advice I gave them was: get involved, but don't let it take over your life enroll others, but understand their

Stranger Danger

2009-11-27T11:05:00.002Z

I recently addressed a meeting of neighbourhood watch coordinators, asking them if they would be prepared to pilot a community-building concept in their area. The idea is simple: reduce and prevent problems with youth by asking neighbourhood watch volunteers to get to know the children, parents and young people in their street. The group liked the idea in principle and some people said they

Manhood

2009-10-27T18:42:00.004Z

I've spent the last seven Mondays in a young offenders' institution piloting the a behaviour change programme called 'Silence the Violence' brought in from South Africa. It was an emotional journey for all of us. At the awards ceremony the boys told the deputy governor and other staff what they had learned. One of them summarised it like this: A male is someone who can make a baby. A man is

Volunteering

2009-08-21T20:27:00.002+01:00

I'm convinced that the way to create what we want and need in our communities is not by complaining about what governments – local and national – are not providing, but by coming together and creating what we want ourselves. If the council provides a youth club / sports club / social club / drop in – that's great. But if it doesn't, and that's what the community needs, it just takes two or three

2009-05-11T14:49:00.007+01:00

Creating Safer Communities for All Spring 2009 Our Aim is for Leighton Buzzard to be a place where:➢ there is a sense of community that allows everyone to feel safe➢ young people feel recognised, valued, respected and catered for➢ adults feel respected by young people**************************************************************************

A Good Childhood

2009-02-28T15:27:00.005Z

This month the Children's Society published its report on childhood in the UK, A Good Childhood – Searching for Values in a Competitive Age. Noting that the UK comes out poorly in studies of child welfare compared to other developed countries (except the United States), it looks for the causes and solutions to the problem. It concludes that in recent decades family and community values have

An uplifting day

2009-01-21T05:00:00.005Z

It started with a meeting with two mums who decided last spring that they wanted to set up a youth club – everything is in place for it to open next week. Later I watched Barack Obama's inauguration on TV.This evening I was invited to a meeting of Cheddington Youth Council – a group of teenagers who want to make their village a better place to live. The two main things on their agenda were how to

Reflections of a boy biker

2008-12-10T11:13:00.000Z

I did everything I could to fit into any gang that would have me in the 70’s. Long hair, unwashed, jeans full of holes, leather jacket with studs and a 750cc Triumph Bonneville motorcycle with extra loud exhaust pipes. I left school at 16 with poor grades from my exams but managed to talk my way into a job. Today my friends are mostly university professors or company directors. Punk Rock is a

The downturn may help build community

2008-12-08T14:25:00.000Z

The up-side of the economic downturn is that we are being forced to reassess our priorities and look at our values. This may push us to focus on truly important things like family, friends and our community. My hope is that we may come out of this downturn not only with a bit of sanity in how our financial institutions are run (and even how much our footballers are paid), but also a realisation

Male role models

2008-11-05T17:55:00.000Z

This morning I watched Barack Obama and John McCain give their speeches when the result of the US presidential election became clear. I was impressed. The two men behaved like statesmen - both acknowledging the strengths of the other, neither allowing themselves or others to blame or to crow, each prepared to put their differences behind them and look to the future and the common good. These are

Are we over-reacting?

2008-10-23T09:46:00.000+01:00

When talking to a group of kids about what would make their community a better place to live, I asked them what adults could do to make it better. One of the boys said "Don't over-react when we do something wrong. Tell us off, but don't make it into a big deal."That's good advice. As adults, we often over-react and blow things out of proportion. Part of growing up is getting up to mischief and