This month’s Directors Chair comes from Director of Operations, Graham:
So after the long hot summer, the school holidays are now here.
This always brings a different dynamic to The Door, with a busy and exciting programme of sessions in our Stroud, Stonehouse, Dursley and Cam centres. These include a number of themed daytime sessions, Fun Days, and trips to places such as Thorpe Park, Weston and outdoor laser tag – visit thedoor.org.uk/summer for the full programme, and you can always find up-to-date details on our Facebook page.
This month’s theme at The Door has been ‘Be Yourself – everyone else is taken’. As you’re probably aware, our strap line is ‘Unlocking Potential – Opening Opportunity’, and for so many young people it’s a lack of confidence and low self-esteem that are locking them up and preventing them from fulfilling that potential. Those of us who have survived adolescence probably remember it as a time of particular emotional vulnerability as we tried to establish our own place in the world, and struggled to cope with all the pressures to conform to norms which weren’t really ‘us’. Now young people are bombarded with so many messages and images both explicit and subliminal telling them how they should be, reinforced by the tyranny of peer pressure. And even the most superficially confident and popular young people go through this too.
Our aim at The Door is to give young people a safe space to step out of the pressure-cooker, to help them to discover who they are, grow the confidence to be themselves, and to be accepted as such by their peers. Our youthworkers and mentors are there to provide great role models to help young people to navigate a safe route through this minefield, and that certainly doesn’t pass through Love Island…