Our Blog

 Guest blog from Lara Williams 

Hi, I’m Lara Williams, and I’m passionate about supporting young people to be themselves, achieve their potential, and most importantly live happy and fulfilling lives. I have worked with young people for over 14 years and I am creator of the SHIFT personal development programme for teenage girls, born out of my concern for the pressure they face in today’s society to achieve perfection in their education and appearance.

For the last 6 months, I have been working on an exciting new concept, with my wonderful business mentor and coach, Sarah Newton. My business is about to enter an exciting new phase, as I prepare to re-brand and launch a product, alongside my coaching programmes. There will shortly be two strands to my business; the service, which are my workshops and 1:1 programmes, and the product, a range of natural skincare especially for teenage girls.

Both service and product will be identified under the same brand name, to be revealed when my new website and product are launched. The overall objective of the brand is to deliver a powerful message to teenage girls about the importance of being true to themselves, rather than striving to be something or someone they are not.

I am currently working to develop the product range, and to do this successfully I need input from girls! I have created a short online survey, which takes less than a minute to complete. The survey is about skincare routines, skin types and product purchases. I would be really grateful if you could forward the link to my survey to any girls you know between the ages of 12 and 21. The survey link is HERE!

I will shortly be looking to form a small focus group of girls, who will try out the products and provide me with feedback. I will be looking for ten girls between the ages of 12 and 21. If you know someone that might be interested please let me know by emailing me at enquiries@larawilliamscoaching.co.uk

For information about my work with young people, please visit my website www.shiftwithlara.com

An exceptional group of students from The Wing Centre in Bournemouth worked with Filmsteps film school last week, as part of their expressive arts week, to make their very own short movie about the problems that teenagers face everyday. The course was 2 days long and the students, all aged 17, came up with a story which they directed and acted in themselves.

The week saw the 5 students, all with Aspergers Syndrome, learning about movie storytelling; brainstorming ideas and collectively creating a poignant story with themes about acceptance, bullying, love and forgiveness. The group also learnt about the essential life skills of teamwork, respect and compromise. The young men will be rewarded for their hard work when they view the edited film in a private screening and receive a DVD of their work.

Filmsteps Poole Head Teacher, Annie East, said of the workshop “It was an honour to be asked to work with these students, who really came out of their shells and grew in confidence as the workshop progressed. To see them smiling, laughing, interacting and working as a group was intensely gratifying”.

Wing Centre’s Lydia Roberts said “Filmsteps was organised as part of a week of different Expressive Arts activities to enable students to explore creativity and use the arts as a vehicle to develop their confidence and belief in themselves and their abilities. Working with Filmsteps gave them an opportunity to explore issues personal to them and chosen by them. All of those who took part took an active role in the development of the work and it gave them a sense of ownership and pride in what they had created as well as developing personal and social interaction skills.”

The Wing Centre, run by the Cambian Group, is a 38 week per year residential special college for young men with Aspergers Syndrome based in Bournemouth. Staff work alongside students within an accepting environment geared to encouraging young men with AS to accept themselves, understand their diagnosis, tolerate others, build self-confidence and experience success as they make the transition to adult life.

Filmsteps Poole also runs Saturday morning term time Filmschool for ages 7-16 from its base at Baden Powell & St Peters School, Lower Parkstone BH14. The young crews have 2 hours every Saturday to learn about directing, acting, editing, screenwriting, camera operating, teamwork, creative thinking, and more. Filmsteps’ next exciting holiday workshop is a 5 Day Summer Filmschool for age 7-16 25-29 July at Castle Court School.

For more info: www.filmsteps.com / 0844 579 1721 / poole@filmsteps.com