There is nothing so encouraging for a teenager as to be listened to and understood. Nothing builds their self-esteem so much as a friendly listening ear. Michael Quinn

November 2009 - Heather Housden - Acorn Schools’ Coordinator writes;

When I joined Acorn as a staff member in 2001, schools were just beginning to introduce peer mentoring schemes in secondary schools. They are now widespread ‘good practice.’ ‘Peer mentors can often understand better than adults the pressure on the fears of their peers’ (Ofsted - Bullying: effective action in secondary schools) What an incredible opportunity to use the Acorn style training and give young people the opportunity to listen to God. So the successful course ’Learning to Listen to Young People,’ was born.

During the following few years the idea of producing a basic listening training course on DVD which any teacher or youth worker could use as a preparation for the full training course was realised. Acorn was blessed with a £36,000 grant from a charitable trust.
 
We had a great time planning, writing and filming in some of the schools and youth groups where we had worked as teachers, tutors –and in my case - inspector. Student themselves created scenes in their drama lessons.

The ‘cherry on the icing’ was tracking down Clara Cesar four years after she had completed a Learning to Listen to Young People course in a local school. She was studying law at Warwick University (we found her on ‘Facebook’) and had blossomed into a reflective and sensitive adult. You must see what she has to say about the value of the course on the Log In Listen In DVD.
 
In short, it is a must have for any school or youth group