Glencruitten Hostel, weekday home for young folks from the Islands and rural areas.
H2O's association with Glencruitten Hostel continues to develop through consistent weekly relational work. The link has deepened in past 12 months through H2O's involvement with visits to the islands to meet P7 pupils and their parents prior to the young people's move to Oban High School and becoming weekday boarders at Glencruitten Hostel (sometimes several weeks at a time if you are from Coll or Colonsay).
Such visits have afforded parents and pupils the opportunity to get to know more about H2O about which they had previously had little detail. Meeting pupils prior to their transition from a classroom situation of sometimes 3 contemporaries at Primary school, to becoming part of a year-group of 200 plus, has provided a "familiar face" particularly for the induction days in June and those first few weeks in August and September when Oban High School feels very big, very new and can be a little scary! H2O's intent is to grow and develop opportunities to link more closely with young people from island and rural communities, and to ensure that they are not excluded from extra-curricular activities in any way due to their island residency. Crucially, relational contact will remain the foundation of the weekly supportive work at the hostel, continuing with occasional sessions such as craft nights, quiz times and games and music nights.
H2O go out to the island communities with school and hostel staff and make themselves known to the P7s about to embark on this transition. They make sure that the pupils have familiar and friendly faces with whom they can relate. H2O also makes itself known to parents at this point and can offer support to whole families that can help them negotiate the substantial changes that the transfer from primary to secondary involves.
H2O workers bond with the youngsters and lend a sympathetic ear; and counselling where necessary; and encouragement. For a young 12 year old child apart from their parents for the first time, such support is enormously important.
"H2O are very highly regarded by the young people who live in Glencruitten Hostel. They are trusted and popular. They are also held in high regard by the Hostel staff."
Roger Bolton, Officer in Charge, Glencruitten Hostel.