Helping young people

Rother council's housing division has been working in partnership with Hastings and Rother Primary Care Trust and Bexhill High School on a new project designed to assist young people in making informed choices and understand the consequences of ill-informed choices.

With the assistance of TheatreActive, an interactive theatre group, a production was held at Bexhill High School last Wednesday for year 11 pupils.

The production was an interactive play based around four characters; the main character experiencing homelessness as a result of various issues, such as family breakdown and poor peer group choices.

The play gave pupils the opportunity to get involved by taking on the script of each character, gaining an understanding of the issues and discussing what decisions each character should make in relation to the issues being raised.

As well as the production held on Wednesday, lesson plans have been devised and are to be embedded in the school curriculum.

The lesson plans explore further the issues dealt with on the day and will give each student a clearer understanding of those issues and where to seek advice if it is required.

Rother leader Cllr Graham Gubby said: "The success of this project is the culmination of focused partnership working between ourselves, Hastings and Rother Primary Care Trust and the High School; the event gave the students the opportunity to explore some quite serious issues in a safe environment."

The project is a pilot that the council and PCT are hoping to roll out to other schools in the district.

High School head Mike Conn said: "This is an exciting project and demonstrates that local partnerships are working for the good of young people in Bexhill".