Elevated Minds has a number of enterprises, all of which have seen sustained levels of success. Our work falls between the following four pillars: Identity, Strong and Healthy Relationships, Aspirations and Locusts of Control.
Each of the programmes includes basic coaching skills and behaviour management tools for use directly with young people or those who work with and support young people.
Programmes
The IDENTITY Project
Accredited by NCFE
The IDENTITY Project is designed to build resilience, confidence, self-esteem and to develop emotional intelligence. This is done through facilitated workshops using techniques and questions derived from Coaching, Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT). It includes guiding the young people to use positive self-talk, perceptual positioning, modelling, future pacing and a variety of other techniques. Icebreakers designed to increase emotional intelligence will be used at the beginning of each session.
We offer both a 13 week accredited programme and a 6-week programme.
Cycles of Change
Rewards Management Programme
We work closely with Safer Schools Officers and the MET Police in empowering young people to make positive choices regarding future outcomes, thus reducing the potential for their involvement in criminal activity.
This programme complements and runs alongside the IDENTITY Project, the Leadership Programme and the Entrepreneur Programme. It is an incentivised system for learning that intrinsically motivates young people and provides the support mechanisms necessary to perform to their full potential. It addresses barriers to achieving success and empowers young people to improve their social and emotional skills and create opportunities for sustainable change and significantly improved behaviour.
LEADERSHIP is the CAPACITY to translate VISION into REALITY
The Leadership Project
Developing and Enhancing Young People's Leadership Skills
Accredited by NCFE
The Leadership Project aims to develop and enhance young people’s leadership skills. Some of the feedback we’ve received from schools regarding The IDENTITY Project (our early intervention programme) is that students’ leadership skills have started to develop through both one-to-one coaching and classroom taught sessions. By their own admission, some students experienced a change in attitude towards their learning, which impacted positively on themselves and other students in their setting. The Leadership Project builds on what was established through The IDENTITY Project.
Having Challenging Conversations
A Programme For Parents/Carers -
Customised Qualification Accredited by NCFE
This accredited programme is delivered to groups of parents (or one-to-one sessions) to help
develop parents’ confidence in communicating with their children and the professionals who work with their children.
Having Challenging Conversation training course will enable parents to use a variety of different tools and techniques, including coaching skills, to have effective challenging conversations, communicating calmly, positively and assertively inside and outside the home. This will improve confidence, self-awareness and, impact positively on relationships and improved emotional intelligence.
Elevated Minds staff have vast coaching experience working with a wide variety of people from different ethnic groups. We can utilise and refine coaching skills and CBT techniques to a point where we can train adults who would like to make a positive change, enhance their skills, or simply build their confidence.
Professional Development Programmes
Basic Coaching Skills for School Staff and Key Workers
We have coached hundreds of young people and adults over the past 8 years, empowering them to take action and make a difference in their own lives. We have worked with young people who are in compulsory education, in further or higher education, adults and young people who are offenders or at risk of offending, have mental health issues, addictions and many other people that fall into the vulnerable client group. We understand the importance of staff having basic coaching skills to provide a safe environment where young people are listened to and are asked the right questions. However, this basic coaching skills course will enable staff to effectively build rapport and trust with students as well as being able them to evoke behaviour change and to reduce or eliminate limiting and unhelpful beliefs, replacing them with a confidence to succeed.
With such in depth coaching experience of working with these particular types of clients, we were able to utilise and refine coaching skills to a point where we now train the staff that work in a supportive capacity with clients that belong to the above groups. The staff we have trained include Mentors, Teaching Assistants, Teachers, Senior Leaders and staff from the Youth Offending Service and adults working with and supporting vulnerable adults.
Creating and Sustaining Change
Change Your Thoughts and You’ll Change Your World
A training course that highlights, educates and proposes sustainable change so that whoever you are, whatever your role, you will have and will be able to provide equal opportunities for all to achieve success.
This training aims to support all educationalists and other professionals to take an unwavering and decisive step toward sustainable change.
The objective is to ensure that all adults, young people and children, especially those from BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) communities, regularly experience an atmosphere of real and attainable aspiration.
Creating and Sustaining Change
MET Police Meet Elevate2Success
Elevate2Success deliver a training course to New Recruits that focuses on improving communications between the police and the Black community.
The aim is to begin to build confidence and trust in the police from the Black community. This will be achieved by highlighting and discussing personal experiences of racism, bias and discrimination. A broader approach will be suggested, discussed and offered as the first step toward finding a solution.
Without communication and listening, sustainable change cannot happen.
Restorative Approaches to Stop and Search: Breaking Barriers and Building Bridges
In proposing to use Restorative Approaches as an intervention in response to stop and search, we have the following aims:
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To develop positive relationships between the police and young people, in particular black males, by promoting understanding and learning on the part of the young person and the police officer whom the young person has encountered during a Stop and Search engagement.
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To promote openness and transparency on the part of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) with a focus on understanding issues from a young person's perspective.
By working with young people and with the police through Restorative Approaches, we will encourage and promote conversations between the two groups. They will learn about each other and better understand motives instead of placing blame. Restorative Approaches is a tool of empowerment, and it is very impactful in improving relationships.
Elevated Aspirations
Background – Inspiration for the Programme
The Metropolitan Police Force (MPS), or ‘Met’, is Britain’s biggest police force and has committed to hiring 40% of new recruits from ethnic minority backgrounds by 2022. Increased diversity in the police service is part of the plan to recruit another 20,000 officers, as policing diverse communities with nondiverse forces is divisive and ineffective.
The Met has the most Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) officers of any force: 5,000 out of 32,600. But it also has the biggest race gap of any force because London is 40% BAME, while the Met’s ranks are 15.4% BAME. Probing further into the figures, as of December 2020, the MPS had 334 Black female police officers and just over 1,000 Black males. Policing targets include an increase in the recruitment of new officers from London. It is highly challenging to build diverse, effective forces if too few Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic officers sign up and too many – finding that hardships and unfairness still
bedevil their careers – choose to leave.
A major objective for the MPS and policing is to improve the legitimacy of policing amongst Black and minority ethnic populations. Public confidence will be enhanced through higher levels of diversity representation that better depicts the make-up of London.
Concerning levels of the Black community across London and nationally have little or no trust or confidence in the police. Respect amongst young Black men towards the police is lower in contrast to other demographics; there are prevalent perceptual feelings of mistrust, and that the police have no respect for them. The young people who work with Elevated Minds often say that the police protect and serve our communities. However, they don’t believe that officers value them; they are mistreated, and therefore they are often unwilling to cooperate or obey white officers.
Resilience
“I’ve lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.” Mark Twain
This training course is aimed at school staff or any other professional who works with and supports young people. Throughout Covid-19, we have all faced many challenges in our personal and professional lives – ranging from minor to devastating.
Being resilient isn’t about being unaffected or impervious to setbacks, obstacles, problems, or issues faced. Being resilient is about having an inbuilt sat-nav that will keep bringing you back on the right route, where you recharge, become balanced, focused and resourceful. Elevated Minds will take professionals through a step by step approach to building their resilience and that of children and young people.
This training will enable professionals to guide children and young people to focus on growth through challenging times, focus on what they can control and use visualisation and other coaching tools to keep them in the driving seat of their lives.
A.I.M.
Advocacy - Intervention – Mentoring
A.I.M. is a 12-month programme that will provide services for:
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parents and families of victims of serious crime
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parents and families of perpetrators of serious crime
Primarily, this programme will be accessible to families living in London.
Rationale:
When asked, one of the main concerns raised by parents of victims of serious crime was their lack of knowledge and understanding of how the Criminal Justice System operates.
Parents voiced that they were not familiar with the overall process and found it challenging to navigate in their bereaved state. Parents added that it was often assumed that they were able to understand what to do following the murder of their child. Yet, they were emotionally unable to take anything in, let alone know the procedures and timings associated with the process.
Shining Through Adversity –
Coming Soon
Shining Through Adversity is a drama project based on the lives of the young people who work and engage with Elevated Minds. It gives young people a voice and the platform to tell their stories, enabling them to share how their lives took a different direction at a pivotal time. The process of scriptwriting, collating and organising props, assigning roles, and promoting the play will primarily be the young people's responsibility. The final production will demonstrate the young people's strengths, talents, and abilities as they take on roles that are significant to their real-life experiences.
This project will enhance the life skills of young people by improving their confidence, self-esteem, emotional well-being, communication and personal development. It will utilise their creative thinking, decision-making, and problem-solving as they take responsibility for their progress and final outcomes. All young people will receive mentoring throughout the whole process, which will support them as they participate in the project.
Online CV Writing Workshops
The CV writing workshop series was created in response to a need from young people between the ages of 14-21 in both the London Borough of Southwark and young people within the inner-city area of Birmingham.
The need for the CV writing workshops was expressed by select groups of young people who felt that even though they had a rough idea of the type of career that they would like to have once they finish education, they didn’t have a CV to help them to enter the job market now. They understood the importance of gaining work experience, but they weren’t confident in articulating their skills, experiences and qualities through written form.
The CV writing workshops consist of x 3 workshops (each workshop is 2 hours long), a CV checking service and a 20 minute 1:1 with an experienced teacher/pastoral lead and a coach and careers advisor. Together they provide a structured, engaging approach to CV writing, building confidence, clarity and autonomy in the process.
What makes the sessions unique is that not only do they teach participants how to create a CV, it also involves elements of mentoring and coaching to build confidence.
Participants are encouraged to take notes throughout; there will also be short pieces of homework to complete by the next session. We included handout materials to support the process.
We have now launched our Crate2Elevate campaign, link below. https://www.spacehive.com/crate2elevate#.YCgHxVKYXuY.gmail
Elevated Minds are focusing on food poverty, impacting significantly on families experiencing poor health and nutritional inequalities.
The initial idea of this campaign came about from some of the young people we support. They recognise that they regularly do not eat healthy food, often choosing a more convenient and unhealthy fast food option.
A majority of the young people and families supported by Elevated Minds are from Black African and Caribbean heritage. Therefore, it is vital that our food campaign removes the stigma attached to healthy eating by ensuring each food parcel delivered is culturally sensitive, and essentially, we want to promote that cooking can be fun.
Elevated Minds are attempting to raise funds for Crate2Elevate, and we could use your help. We have already raised £5,500 toward our target of £41,064 in just 8 weeks.
Even a small donation would help us reach our goal. We plan to use the money raised to support over 25 families in the following ways:
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1. To recruit a Specialist Nutritional Chef to demonstrate and raise awareness of how cooking can be used to increase the young people’s sense of pride when others enjoy a meal they had made.
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To recruit fitness coaches, one male and one female, to provide a wide range of activities beyond cooking to help keep young people fit, healthy, engaged and motivated.
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To commission a supplier who is both local and culturally aware to provide the weekly shop that will include fresh fruits and vegetables.
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To provide 25 food parcels with a minimum of 16 different items for 25 families.
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To purchase some basic utensils such as 25 pans, pots and wooden spoons.
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Payment towards transports and delivery costs.
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To publish a recipe book at the end of the project.
You can donate on our crowdfunding campaign page by clicking here: