WHAT WE OFFER

Smash Life is creative in its approach to reaching the children and young people that we work with. By bringing activities such as sport, music, games, walks and trips to our services, we have found that they are a very powerful way to engage and help us to achieve overall positive results for the young people. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive in this area with the young people enjoying and looking forward to their sessions. As a further and practical addition, we now also offer an NOCN accreditation which can be completed alongside our mentoring service!

We offer a wide selection services, from various support services and training to keynote speeches and inspirational talks. More details about each service can be found below as well as a dedicated page that provides comprehensive details about our inspirational talks and training.

Click or tap on the + icon to read about each service that we can provide to you / your organisation.

Smash Life offer inspirational talks catering to both young people, and industry professionals and trainees. The talks have been very successful and have been delivered to enthralled audiences up and down the UK.

Each talk can be tailored to young people, professionals, organizations, training days and conferences and will focus on adverse childhood experiences, abuse, complex trauma, safeguarding and much more. The benefit of the talks in a professional context is to provide continued professional development by helping you / your organisations staff, understand children and young people’s behaviour, through the lens of a lived experience, change and challenge approaches and perceptions and bring a reality to practice that can’t be obtained through books.

For young people they will receive a motivational, hard hitting, factual story that will help them to understand that they are not alone with their own trauma’s and can build up their existing skills and resilience; following the positive example set by the Smash Life brothers.

We now have an array of talks we can offer to young people & professionals so please ask during the booking stage.

Click HERE to view our Talk Terms & Conditions

Our bespoke and unique shared life “one-to-one” mentoring sessions are for young people who need a positive role model, guidance and a listening ear.

Smash Life is creative on its approach to mentoring, enabling young people to open up to us, so that we can really focus on their voice. We have found that it is limiting to sit in a room and ask a young person to just “talk about it” as this can be oppressive and daunting for some individuals.

By bringing sport, music, games, walks, and trips to expand on the Mentoring we have achieved better results and the young people enjoy and look forward to the sessions. We believe that showing our own vulnerability will inspire those we mentor to share their own.

As part of this, we have set up a ‘Smash Life Experiences’ package, that promote a hobby or help build a young person’s aspirations. We know that not all young people have the opportunity to have the same involvement and exposure to some positive activities that we may take for granted. This is due to the reality that they may find themselves in growing up. We have a wide variety of experience packages available including: Woodland (team building), Football, Music and much more.

Our mentoring service provides learning and enriches lives through fun activities and engagement. We are flexible and can tailor a mentoring programme to meet a young person’s individual needs.

‘Smash Life Reports’ are an additional “add on” service. If requested, they can be written after each mentoring session in order to identify needs, pass on any concerns, share positive steps and capture the young person’s voice. This ensures that the young person is continually heard and their needs acted upon swiftly by fellow professionals working with them. As mentioned above, the reports are optional and will be discussed with you during the referral stage.

We also offer ‘Virtual Mentoring’ for young people who may benefit from this form of communication. This can apply to those young people with severe anxiety or to a young person who we cannot get to because of geographical reasons, thereby expanding the reach of our Mentoring service.

Featuring the same high-quality mentoring as our traditional face-to face service, we use a secure virtual platform to carry out the sessions. So far they have proved very popular to those young people who have already benefitted from the service.

Smash Life offer ‘Life Story Work’. We believe this is a vital and important piece of work for young people in the care system. Both Smash Life Directors Andy & Matt experienced Life Story Work whilst growing up in the care system and know first-hand how important this work is.

We have a dedicated staff member who can support young people who may benefit from Life Story Work.

Some young people in care do not get the opportunity to do this important piece of work due to high waiting lists and eligibility.

This work is so important as it can provide young people with a wider knowledge as to who they are, where they have come from and why they are in care. This can help them moving forwards and learning to adapt to their new surroundings.

Our dedicated Life Story Worker can use lots of creativity and work alongside young people, carers and other professionals to create something the young people can keep and look back on in years to come. As well as being a therapeutic intervention, this can also be a fun creative journey for the young person.

“The research has shown us that TLSW strengthens the attachment of a child to a primary care giver, which then supports improvement in peer relationships, education outcomes, reduction in trauma symptoms experienced, reduction of high-risk behaviours, improves mental health and wellbeing and overall, a greater sense of identity”

Dr James Lucas.

THE BENEFITS OF LIFE STORY WORK

  • Young People have a better understanding of who they are, where they have come from and why they may have been placed in the care system.
  • Promotes open and honest conversations around difficult topics in a safe space and with the support of a qualified life story worker.
  • Using creative and fun ways to pull all of the information together and into something the young person feels belongs to them and they have contributed to.
  • Helps build young people’s sense of self-worth and relationships with carers, professionals and those around them.
  • Young People have somewhere to place positive achievements, special memories and things that mean a lot to them all in one place.
  • Young people have something at the end of it that they can keep forever.
  • Young people aren’t on waiting lists waiting for this important piece of work to be done.

If you have a young person, you feel may benefit from some Life Story Work with a qualified Life Story Worker, then we would love to hear from you. you can get in touch now, by clicking the button on the right or HERE.

We offer a ‘Smash Life NOCN Qualification’ that young people aged 11-18 can complete alongside our bespoke mentoring sessions! This qualification provides a way for the young person to learn new skills that they will be able to take into further education, training or employment.

In our group sessions we provide a safe space for young people to listen, discuss, share and learn about difficult topics or issues that have been identified by you or them e.g. drugs, alcohol, masculinity, gang culture, future aspirations and promoting positive / healthy relationships plus lots more. We combine these issue focussed group sessions with sport, games, music and creative expression, to make them fun and engaging for those taking part.

As an extension to our group work and mentoring services we also provide ‘Mediation’. We have seen many examples of how low-level conflict can quickly escalate into bigger issues for the individuals involved and at a cost to services (NHS/Police/Courts) and sometimes families and the local community. We will attend a meeting in any setting to try and resolve issues between two parties or individuals. Sometimes a neutral mediator can provide a safe platform for individuals to work through their differences without violence being used, whilst at the same time learning how to talk instead of acting through fear or responding to threats of intimidation.

We firmly believe that by providing a space to air grievances that can be listened to and resolved peacefully at ‘ground level’, we can help to tackle some of societies bigger issues – like the rise in knife crime and other criminal / anti social activities. We are all about proactive, early intervention work that can help to create communities inhabited by people who are emotionally intelligent.

We also offer training to groups of professionals working with young people as part of their ongoing professional development. This will not only help to improve practice but also create better outcomes for the young people and families that we all aim to work alongside and empower.

To book group work or Smash Life neutral mediation service now, simply click the ‘Book a Service’ button below and complete the form.

We understand that many young people often ask professionals “What do you know?” and question what qualifies them to know how they are feeling in a given situation. This is where our service differs from the majority of others, as Matt and Andy have both lived a life within the care system without a mum or a dad for the majority of their lives.

This personal experience combined with vast professional knowledge and qualifications, enable Smash Life to offer a “shared life experience” providing advice and guidance to young people based on “real life” experience and not just information learned from reading a text book.

We find this resonates with young people because we as adults are able to open up to them, they in turn open up to us.

We are able to use our experience of growing up in the social care system and our many years of working within it, to provide advice and guidance to your organisation on how to create a more young person centred service.

We can observe your practice, or meet with your staff teams to discuss solutions to problems you face and create a safe space for staff to open up and be honest about the challenges they encounter, so that you can identify further training to empower them. We can also advise on things like policies and procedures, safe working practices and ideas based around hearing and capturing the voice of the child throughout the structure of your organisation.

This service can also be provided under the guise of a “mystery customer” or undercover independent examiner, in order to provide your organisation with ‘real life results’ and professional feedback on how you are doing in areas that you want to find out about.

This training is also available to young people who may be within your organisation and require assistance in specific areas or career advice / guidance.

Benefits

Our courses, mentoring and talks have had proven results for our young people in the following areas:

  • Driven down exclusion rates of young people in education.

  • Improved behaviour within education and home settings.

  • Promotion of a positive lifestyle: exercise, good routines and a healthy diet.

  • Helps to reduce anti-social behaviour in young people.

  • Helps to keep young people safe and free from abuse.

  • Maintaining Foster and Adoptive placements, saving local authorities costs and hours of time in crisis intervention.

  • Providing Qualifications through mentoring to help Young People gain employment.

  • Promoting positive diversions and building relationships with community organisations and businesses.

Feedback

Below are reactions to our service and keynote speaking from some of our recent clients and young people!

“Andy has provided our most vulnerable students with support that they would not be able to access within school. His unique perspective on the issue experienced by LAC has enabled our students to feel secure, in particular during the stressful exam season. This is an excellent example of use of pupil premium funding.”

Teacher, Holy Trinity School - Telford

“Incredible. Thank you for sharing your story and advice”

Christine Dunn, Professional

“…really looks forward to her sessions which is such a transformation – when ….has something to think about ….opens up with us here which is such a relief and …also feels reassured about things on her mind knowing ….can talk it over with Matt”

Parent, Mentoring Client

“Just had the most inspirational speech from these lads. Absolutely amazing and they should be very proud of themselves and their achievements”

Matthew William, Care Home Manager - Keys Group

“Thank you for coming along and sharing your story with us all. Such a heartfelt speech that moved everyone in the room, and lots of really important information to take away.”

Keys Group

“These remarkable brothers suffered long term abuse, humiliation, degradation and shame at the hands of those entrusted with their care. Their life story is one of courage, resilience and determination.. Their promise to use yesterday and their commitment to each other today, is to be the change for children that they should have experienced. If you are looking for conference speakers, mentors for your children these chaps are going to be booked up very quickly after being invited for by the consortium for therapeutic communities to their first conference debut yesterday.”

Sarah Morgan, Specialist Advisor, Education and Childrens Social Care

“Having heard Andy and Matt speak I was able to relate many of the things they said to me and to the young people I work with and could only hope the young people that I work with develop a tiny bit of insight that Andy and Matt have. Their talk and shared experiences show that young people do not need to be a victim of their past and hearing this first hand can only strengthen this belief with the young people they work with. The motivation, humour, honesty and frankness of the talk is moving and exhilarating. I felt a roller coaster of emotions listening but felt even more motivated to support the young people I work with. Since meeting Andy and Matt I have spoken to young people about them – shared their messages and views. Their words have stayed with me and I can relate their experiences to many different situations I come across in my role. I thought I knew a lot “looked after children” , care leavers, the system – but learnt more from this talk than any other course, training or from books.”

Kathryn Packer, Education Liaison Officer

“Our young people really value time with Matt. It’s their space. Their time. Time to express how they feel. Time not to be judged or made to conform. Time to be themselves”

 

Head Of Pastoral Care , The Priory School Shrewsbury

“A big thank you for helping so far on this absolute monumental journey I’ve been on: Anger, Emotions, and Positive vibes so again thank you so much”

Young Person, Mentee

“I just want to say a massive thank you to Andy for the support I have been given. I can always know that no matter what mood I am in I will always come out of the session smiling. More people should be like this looking out for others.”

Young Person, Mentee

“It was really good, he was really cool and I enjoyed the talk because Matt was funny, down to earth and really relatable, not like some teachers who just talk down to you”.

Pupil, Charlton Secondary School Telford

“Andy has a fresh delivery style to bring home the stark reality of young people in crisis and dwelling on his past experiences he provides many ideas on helping young people to get on the right path to make the best life choices they can. He is an inspiration to young people everywhere who are daunted by the challenges life brings them.”

Helen Ball , Shrewsbury Town Council Clerk

“I was lucky to hear Andy and Matt present earlier this year and their story must be one that has resonated with me the most. Ever. It has informed our practice at Sandcastle Care and we now weave our therapeutic web into colleges and schools offering trauma informed care training even further. Thank you Andy. Thank you Matt.”

Helen Barton , Head of Therapeutic Services at Sandcastle Care

“ Since I have seen you I am not arguing with the teachers, its good to know someone has been there and understands.”

Young Person, Mentee

“What a breakthrough……he has told you more than he would’ve shared with carers or me on the first meeting”

Social Worker, Shropshire Council

“Andy and Matt give so much to those they work with, they really are an inspiration to so many. Being able to relate to the young people they mentor through their shared life experiences gives the young people someone they can connect with openly. I would highly recommend Smash Life.”

Natalie Prudence, Elite Dance Studios

OUR PARTNERS

We are proud to work alongside the Council’s, Schools, Businesses and Groups listed below.

Nick Barwick
Woodside Primary School Shrewsbury
Telford and Wrekin Council
Shropshire Council
The Priory Secondary School
Foster Wiki
Wellbeing Festival Shrewsbury
SALT
Sonic Boom Band
The Smash Room Studio
Positive Outcomes Childcare
Energize Telford
The Holly Project
Simon Less Guitarist
Meruale
Alberts Shed
Peachypix Photography
Sonnetsmith - songwriter
SoFranc Films

WATCH THE ‘SMASH LIFE’ VIDEOS

View a selection of our video resources below. Many featuring songs written by ‘Smash Life’ Director: Matt Smith.

These resources are born out of personal experiences and have been made to specifically to help engagement with young people and children going through difficulties and trauma. The videos can be used for free, as conversation starting points or inspirational motivation.

You can visit our Youtube channel by clicking the icon below – please like and subscribe whilst you’re there!