Want to work with a music producer?
Need some experience of recording and producing your own music?

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Block Beats gives you two, 2 hour sessions in the studio with our music producer to make a track tailored to you.
You can then come and record the track in our studio!

You will also be offered performance opportunities with SixFives!
Sound like something you would like?

The IYS Youth Work team are dedicated to offering BPoC young people safe spaces to explore their identity, experience decision-making, increase their confidence, develop interpersonal skills and encourage leadership development.

IYS young people have a range of services they can Utilise: 
TLC
Duke of Edinburgh
The Block
Block Beats
SixFive
IYS are constantly looking at ways to better serve our young people and our wider community.

IYS Pro Black, Anti-Racist Education is a year long education module for S5 &S6 which tackles race and intersecting oppressions through a youth-work approach.

The education programme enables young people to engage in anti-racism and empowers pupils to become drivers of social change in their school and local communities.

Through the IYS Pro Black, Anti-Racist Education Programme pupils learn how to recognise inequalities and systems of power and learn to engage with each other avoiding harm and re-traumatisation. Pupils learn to counteract systems of oppression and productively engage with each other through a shared understanding of issues of power beyond their individual needs, values and expectations, but on a structural and societal level. Led by Black educators and educators of Colour, the programme recognises the role of racial trauma and white fragility, and makes an active effort to mitigate its effects.

Anti-racist Pro Black Education Module tackles
 - Community guidelines and setting up safe spaces        for difficult conversations
-How to be a reflective, brave and active learner

Builds and understanding of
-Introduction to pre-colonial societies
 -Introduction to the origin of race as a social   
    construct and pseudo science

The programme looks at race and how it intersects with key areas in young people’s lives:

Race & Health
Race & Education
Intersectionality
Race & Criminal Justice System
Race & Environmental Justice.

The Education Programme is closely linked to other IYS youth services, that best run along side other IYS services in schools like an accompanying lunch clubs, girls groups as well as the employability services Restless Natives, which are great services extensions that IYS can offer.

Young Black People and People of Colour are at the core of everything IYS does.

Through our advocacy work, we make sure their voices are heard by policy-makers and in key decision-making processes and advocate for them to have a space to do so themselves  For too long, these voices have gone unheard, and policy-makers have been comfortable with incremental change.

IYS are pushing for equitable support and funding and specialist services for young Black People and People of Colour across Scotland to ensure these changes are long term and meaningful.

Some of our recent advocacy work has been:
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-  As part of the Young Person’s Guarantee Implementation Group, we’re pushing for equitable support for Black and POC school leavers through our Restless Natives program. 
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- Our involvement in the the UNCRC Bill call for views with the Equalities and Human Rights committee into better integration of these rights into the daily lives of BPoC young people in Scotland.We are pushing for changes in education policy to better serve our young people by co-facilitating key stakeholders with the aim for a whole school anti-racism approach, working with Scottish Government and the Deputy First Minister.

As part of the Gender Equality Taskforce for Education and Learning we are contributing to an intersectional perspective on gender inequality.

 We’re working with Children in Scotland and GTCS to improve diversity in views of education in Scotland. We’re advocating for better Mental Health services for young Black People and People of Colour

Through our Restless Natives program, we aim to deal with barriers faced by young Black People and People of Colour at every stage of their journey. Our holistic approach means we engage with both the young people we hope to work with, as well as the organisations that need to improve with regard to anti-racism.
We offer tailored, holistic support to help you reach your potential. Whether you’re trying to get into university, looking for a new job, are a new graduate or just need help figuring out what you want to do next, our experienced youth workers can get on your level and work with you to achieve what you know you can

While we can help young people deal with some of the barriers they might face, we need to be realistic about the way workplaces operate.

Through our Restless Natives program, IYS offers training and employer supports to help workplaces build anti-racism into their workplace practices and procedures.

Our training has been delivered to over 30 organisations with universally positive feedback.
Our continued Engagement with Black and POC young people gives us a Specialist Outlook that others Lack, and a perspective that is alarmingly
absent in workplaces across Scotland.

We offer half-day and full-day workshops to any type of organisation, with training developed to help you begin to deal with issues and barriers Specific to your sector or field . Get in touch for more information

Click here to sign-up!

As part of our Restless Natives program we are committed to developing a new generation of BPOC creatives in Design, Multimedia and Tech. This initiative will be kept alive at this time as a virtual internship program.