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Peer Education
“Peer Education” describes a range of initiatives where people of similar ages, backgrounds, culture and/or social status educate each other about a variety of issues.
Support for young people information leaflet:: Support for Young People
What does OPEN do?
Peer Education: OPEN recruits and trains young people aged 16-25 to become 'peer educators'. OPEN's main purpose is to embed peer education across Shetland as a methodology of raising awareness and encouraging positive lifestyle choices - especially on issues concerning substance use, relationships, sexual health, and mental health; whilst promoting harm reduction at every opportunity. OPEN deliver peer education workshops to all S1-S4 students in Shetland, and all young people 12-25 in other settings. We run weekly tuesday night meetings from 6pm-8.30pm to look at training the peer educators, designing and developing workshops to deliver to other young people.
Peer Mentoring: OPEN are now also operating a Peer Mentoring Programme; with the aim to recruit and match mentors (16-25) with mentees (14-21), to facilitate peer-to-peer mentoring sessions for young people who are care experienced and/or in the youth justice system as well as any disadvantaged young people at risk of social isolation or exclusion. OPEN aims to recruit 4-6 young people per year to become mentees, as well as recruiting and training 4-6 peer mentors per year, whom the mentees will be carefully matched with. The aim of this programme is to improve outcomes for participants, and to prevent offending behaviour.
Da Cafe: OPEN runs a weekly space for young people (14-25) in the Olive Tree on Mondays and Thursdays 4pm-6pm. Da Cafe is there to give young people in shetland a space to go, where they dont have to spend money to sit in the warmth and access free wifi. We have completed Peer Research looking into youth spaces within shetland, for more info contact Wayne Leask
Time 2 Shine Leader, Jessica Carlyle - OPEN Organisation Development Lead
OPEN operates as a project of Voluntary Action Shetland (VAS) and reports to the Board of Directors. A review of VAS in 2021 highlighted the opportunity for sustainable projects to become independent organisations.
A natural and exciting progression for OPEN is to research and plan how to become an independent genuinely youth-led charity, managed and coordinated by young people, with appropriate support and training in place to achieve this.
The culture and ethos of OPEN is to involve young people in the design, delivery and development of the project. Jess is coordinating the participation and empowerment of young people to lead the organisational development of the project.
How the project is delivered
OPEN’s Peer Education is delivered mainly through school workshops; by trained volunteers (aged 16-25 years) engaging with groups of young people. OPEN have a rolling ‘Schools Delivery Programme’ in place with all high schools and junior high schools in Shetland, which sees every workshop assigned to a specific year group; matching the issues most relevant the participants’ age.
OPEN workshops include:
- OPEN Online
- OPEN about Drugs
- OPEN about Alcohol
- OPEN about Sexual Health
- OPEN about Positive Relationships
- OPEN about the Sexual Health Clinic
- Mentally OPEN
- OPEN about Grooming
- OPEN about LGBT+
- Party Safe
The Peer Mentoring project supports and trains young people aged 16-25 to become peer mentors to in turn, provide support and guidance for 14-21 year olds that are care experienced, criminal justice experienced, or those at risk of exclusion. The Mentors and Mentees are matched together based on sharing similar backgrounds, experiences and interests. The young people build a meaningful and trusting relationship to support the mentee to develop a positive pathway.
Da Café is a weekly drop-in youth space at the Olive Tree, which aims to attract Shetland’s most vulnerable and hard-to-reach young people. The OPEN Up nights that taken place across 2019/20 have proven that having a consistent, safe, and welcoming place to meet up during the week has been very successful in attracting and engaging young people who are care-experienced, involved with Criminal Justice, and/or excluded from school, youth clubs, community centres, and venues/facilities such as Mareel and Clickimin.
Peer Research Projects
Funded by the Ideas Fund 
And Childrens Services, Shetland Islands Council 
Professional researchers:
Jennifer Russell, Anderson Solutions, Lead Researcher has 21 years’ experience in consultancy, working for the public and third sectors doing research, evaluation and strategy.
Dr Amy Calder is a qualitative researcher and holds a PhD in Criminology. Amy has worked for YouthLink Scotland for 7 years and leads on using participatory research methods to demonstrate the impact of youth work and support both the sector and young people to develop research skills
Drugs and Alcohol research project
OPEN Peer Researchers, Akira Foster and Shannon Boston are currently working on the Drugs and Alcohol research project. We are gathering data surrounding drugs and alcohol culture with Shetland, to look at why young people may use substances, patterns of use and help for problem use or to avoid problem use. With the aim to gain a deeper understanding what young people feel about these issues and to get a more accurate picture of what the alcohol and drugs culture looks like to young people in Sheltand.
Childrens Services Vision Review - (September-December 2022)
OPEN Peer Researchers, Rachel and Shannon have been commissioned to review Children Services vision. We are gathering young people’s views on what they feel are the challenges faced by Shetlands young people and what improvements they would want Children Services to prioritise in their vision statement for their vision for the future. Youth Services are assisting in the distribution of the Survey in Shetlands Schools.
To take part in the research please complete this quick 10 minute online survey - Childrens services review (deadline by Friday 11th November 2022)
Or get in touch to take part in a focus group or 1 to 1 interview by contacting the project below
Contact details:
If you would like to find out more or get involved then please contact Una Murray
OPEN peer researchers can be contacted Via Email @ Akira Foster / Shannon Boston / Rachel Wiseman
Or message OPEN Project FB page
Youth Information
Alex is OPEN's new Time to Shine (T2S) Leader supported and funded by The Rank Foundation. Alex's job role is Youth Information Worker with the OPEN Project. Additionally Alex will also be taking a lead with OPEN’s Social media. Our vision going forward is to create a network of support for young people so they are aware of the available help they can get. Whether that be help with support in school/college or help getting access to housing, Mental Health support and everything in between. The goal to sign post to all the available organisations and resources that not all young people are aware that they can use.
If you or any young person has questions or would like sign posting information then please get In touch. Via:
Email: openproject@shetland.org
Training OPEN can provide:
Please be aware that all the training provided is done in line with harm reduction methods and are all focused on raising awareness;
- Drugs Awareness
- Alcohol Awareness
- Sexual Health Awareness
- Positive Relationships Awareness
- Mental Health Awareness
- Emergency First Aid
- Child Exploitation Online Protection (CEOP)
- Personal Development
- Leadership
The OPEN team
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Una Murray Project Coordinator | Saul Day Project Coordinator |
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Wayne Leask Mentoring Coordinator / Development Worker | Jess Carlyle Organisation Development Lead |
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Shannon Boston Peer Researcher - Alcohol and Drugs | Akira Foster Peer Researcher - Alcohol and Drugs |
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Johan Tait Youth Worker | Rachel Wiseman Youth Worker |
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Alex Tresadern (Time 2 Shine Leader) Youth Information Worker |
OPEN in Numbers:
April 2021 – March 2022
- Number of young people volunteering with OPEN: 20
- OPEN Volunteers have contributed 825 hours to the OPEN project this year!
- Based on the living wage all our volunteers have contributed £8500 in kind, through their volunteering.
- 1191 young people have participated in 65 workshops over the year. Of these workshops the young participants recorded that their awarness of the issues raised increase by an average of 73%.
- Since 2014 OPEN have delivered 518 workshops to 7566 young people! This is an incredible achievement contributing to young people
How You Can Get Involved
Peer Education
OPEN are looking for young people aged 16-25 to become Peer Educators delivering issues based workshops in all high schools across Shetland! Peer Educators will receive induction training and training for each issue/ workshop they are interested in delivering (Online safety, Alcohol, Drugs, Sexual Health, Positive Relationships, Mental Health)
Tuesday Night meetings
OPEN hold weekly volunteer meetings to provide training, create and develop workshops, discuss issues important to young people and engage with strategic partners to ensure that young people’s voices are being listened to.
These meetings happen every Tuesday night from 6pm-8.30pm (term time).
Peer Mentoring
OPEN are looking for young people aged 16-25 that are interested in helping other young people to become Peer Mentors. Our Peer Mentors will meet with young people regularly to listen and encourage them to identify and work towards some personal goals. Peer Mentors would first volunteer within Da Café to engage with young people to build up relationships with other young people.
Da Café Youth Committee
OPEN are looking for young people with a passion for creating and running a space for young people in Lerwick. The youth committee are currently leading on a Peer Research looking into young people’s needs for spaces in Shetland. With this information, OPEN will look to create a space in Lerwick for young people aged 14-25.
OPEN Steering Group
OPEN have set up a steering group looking into turning OPEN into a fully Independent and Youth-led charity. The steering group will be looking at forming a board of young people that will have the authority to make decisions on how OPEN operates and the vision and direction for the project.
Peer Research
If you are interested in having your opinion listened to on various topics, get in touch with us and engage with our Peer Researchers. We will be using all the information gathered to make positive changes for young people in Shetland.
For example, OPEN will use the information gathered on what spaces young people need in Lerwick to work with young people to create a permanent space to meet that need. We are also speaking with the SIC to create more spaces that meet other needs where possible.
Phone: 01595 745074.
Email: openproject@shetland.org
Contact us on any of our Socials by following this link: OPEN Project
