KJET Success Continues In The City
12 January 2007
The KJET programme pioneered so successfully last year at Lisburn YMCA has received funding so that the Lisburn North Community Association can continue its development across the city.
The programme is aimed at helping children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) to recognise their individual skills, talents and knowledge. It is widely believed that children with ADHD who develop these skills feel a sense of empowerment and recognise inappropriate behaviour and its consequences.
Officers from the North Lisburn Community Policing Team had become aware that some of the children coming to their attention did so through frustration borne out of suffering from ADHD and as such also became involved in the development of KJET. The pioneering programme devised initially by Kevin Quigley of Lisburn YMCA has now even come to the attention of those in the highest levels within local Healthcare and Policing.
Constable Ray Gardiner of North Lisburn Community Policing Team said:
“In Lisburn there is certainly a growing awareness of both the condition of ADHD and the successful KJET programme itself. We hope that this will eventually extend throughout the province and help all such young people to develop their social skills and self-esteem, as well of course as an appreciation of actions and consequences”.
Jimmy Millar, Chairman of Lisburn North Community Association, has learned from the successes of the KJET programme at Lisburn YMCA and has now gained funding from the Phoenix Energy for Children Charity to replicate the programme at its Drumard Court premises. The Energy for Children Charity was set up last year by the local natural gas industry, to raise money towards the needs of local disadvantaged children and to really make a difference to their lives. The Charity has recently surpassed its first milestone of raising £100,000 in just 12 months.
Peter Dixon, Chairman of the Phoenix Energy for Children Charitable Trust, was in Lisburn to meet the different groups involved in the programme and commented:
“It is certainly clear that a sense of ownership and pride has developed amongst the kids on the KJET programme and it is fantastic for us to be able to provide funding for it to continue across the city”.
Pictured: Peter Dixon (Chairman of the Phoenix Energy for Children Charitable Trust), Roy Gardiner (North Lisburn Community Policing Team), Julie Ann Bell (Lisburn YMCA) and 11-year-old Matthew Davis from the KJET programme.