The Mercian Trust

From exiting Prison gates to speaking at Aston Villa Football Club! Earlier this month I had the pleasure of speaking at The Mercian Trust Youth Violence Awareness & Reduction Conference to discuss how creative educational initiatives like EY Outreach can help steer young people away from negative outcomes, by amplifying their voices and helping them actualise their talent. To support me with this, I had two amazing young men, Abbas and Karmane, who were both participants on the very first #EYOutreach and The Invested Man Resettlement and Rehabilitation programme, delivered in partnership with the West Midlands Violence Reduction Unit. The gents eloquently spoke to a room of youth practitioners, local authorities and educational leaders, sharing their story, advice and expert knowledge on how the right opportunities can be created to help support socially margenlised groups such as Prison Leavers maxmise their potential. Thank you Mark Goodwin for putting on the amazing event and granting the lads and I the opportunity to inform and inspire!

Booking now - Cyber Security Awareness Workshop - Thursday 21 November at our fantastic new facility in Walsall town centre. 📄 Read the course flyer - https://lnkd.in/e-C3Wrpg 🎫 Book your place - https://lnkd.in/eSNGP_JB

🎉 Last Friday, we celebrated the grand opening of the new Digital Skills Hub in Walsall town centre. This state-of-the-art facility, funded by the UK Government and Walsall Council as part of the Town Deal, aims to provide vital digital skills across the borough. Converted from four previously empty shop units, the Hub features a large communal learning and meeting space, a specialist IT training suite, and a flexible space for training, private hire, and co-working for digital professionals. Repurposing disused town centre buildings into meaningful spaces is crucial for the future of our town and district centres. The Digital Skills Hub is a catalyst for developing the digital and AI skills that employers in every sector need now and in the future. 🌐 #WalsallTownDeal #SkillsForTheFuture #Innovation #DigitalSkillsHub The Mercian Trust

We are really looking forward to our second Trust CPD event of the year on 20th November. We've been linking intelligence and findings from our Professional Learning Communities, our Continuous School Improvement priorities and Strategic Groups to ensure that the programme is responsive to contextual need and professional interests. Really excited to welcome Nikki Sullivan, Sharon Warmington Dr Chris Baker Best Practice Network Chartered College of Teaching Jonny Goggs FRSA Kim Whiting Lee Elliot-Major OBE Smash Life WomenEd and many more to the programme this half term. Your generosity and support is valued by colleagues across The Mercian Trust.

If you didn't make it along to the official Digital Skills Hub launch last Friday, you can read the full story on our website - https://lnkd.in/eXvWbkTe

🎉 It was brilliant to officially open Walsall's Digital Skill Hub this morning. A big thank you to everyone involved. 🙌 We've set up a LinkedIn showcase page for the Digital Skills Hub 👇 , so please follow for the latest updates about this exciting project.

We're really looking forward to welcoming guests for our official opening today.

Yesterday I was invited to the House of Parliament to a knife crime event. Last Wednesday The Mercian Trust organised a conference on youth crime and it was lovely to see some of our key speakers at this event too @poojakanda Kulvarn Atwal. It was great to see so many MP’s in the same room and to hear from MP Pat McFadden who is passionate about tackling knife crime and has been a huge support to families effected by knife crime. I also met with services such as the CPS and an organisation called the Safety Box that go into schools and work in prisons. The importance of therapeutic work was recognised amongst all in the room. It was an honour to be invited to this event and i’m so happy for Pooja Kanda who was able to share her story, in memory of her son,Ronan. Overall, it was a great and informative day. For Mercian Trust, our commitment to support preventing youth crime did not stop at our conference last week. This is the start in our journey to help tackle such an important issue.

Grit CEO Ellie Garraway led a workshop at The Mercian Trust Youth Violence Awareness and Reduction Conference yesterday. “It was great to be amongst a room of such varied roles and organisations – from school staff to youth workers, youth justice teams, police, charities and mental health specialists – yet all with a strong sense of common ground. I really enjoyed working with attendees to look at the challenges involved in creating the space for young people to get to the heart of what’s going on for them. We looked at how our inner critic is often at the heart of why we get so stuck in certain ‘ruts’ in life and feel paralysed to bring about change, we also looked at how a coach can play such an integral role in disrupting those ruts. The group did an amazing job at throwing themselves in, and even in the short period of time, made great insights about their own coaching and how to develop it. A real pleasure of a day.” Thanks Mark Goodwin for the opportunity. Liz Robinson Stacey Salt Dr Herminder Channa OBE NLE Rhiannon Goodeve Gareth Williams Keziah Featherstone FCCT Imran Khan BA(Hons), MCCT, NPQH Daniel Edmonds Kellie Brooke Tara McVey Tiff Baxendale Oli McVeigh

A huge thank you to everyone who made today's #youthviolenceconference a success. An absolutely fantastic range of expert speakers, all bringing their insights, experiences, and solutions to this crucial topic. Dr. Phill Gittins Dennis Simms Laura Smith Tom Bellwood Roy Leighton Ellie Garraway Jerrel Jackson Phil Dolby Yeshua Carter Bella Dhariwal Kulvarn Atwal Kevin Davis DL Dan Parkes Mark Goodwin