Learning from the Streets

Welcome to ‘Learning from the Streets’ a blog by me, James Ballantyne, which at the moment has about 700 articles on it, ranging from detached youthwork, youth ministry, community development, theology, mission and Theodrama. Please do take a look around, use the menus and tags to find articles of practical help or further discussion.

I am currently a learning and development officer for the Methodist Church based in the North of England, previously I was a Team leader for Communities Together Durham, and North East Activist for Frontier Youth Trust. All of these roles involve aspects of supervision, training, coaching and managing others. 

My previous work experience includes being Centre Director at Durham YFC,  which involved managing and supervising youthworkers, and helping in the delivery of detached youth work, after-schools open youth clubs and schools based mentoring work in County Durham, I also co-ordinated detached youth work with the Sidewalk Project in Perth (Scotland) and a community project in Devion. I am qualified to MA level in Theology and Ministry at Durham University (St Johns College) and I completed an Honours degree at ICC, Glasgow, in Youthwork with Applied Theology.

I am also self employed and have delivered training and lectures for a variety of organisations and training providers including: ICC, SWYM and CYM, as well as training and seminars for Exeter YMCA, Exmouth ICE, Deep Impact (Scotland), St Andrews Episcopal Diocese (Scotland), Newcastle Diocese, Highlife Highland, Hot Chocolate Trust (Dundee), DACYM and Inverclyde YFC. I have conducted organisation consultation and analysis sessions, as well and facilitating practice supervision for individuals. 

Thank you for visiting this site, I hope you found reading the articles interesting and stimulating for your practice of working with young people, please comment, share anything that might be of help to you and your volunteers.

If you would like to support me financially do follow the links on the right to donate via KO-FI or direct to Paypal. Thank you.

To contact me directly do so via Jamesballantyne1978@yahoo.co.uk or leave a comment below, thank you.