East Berkshire families, children and young people's fund 2022

Create Hope - Therapeutic Services for Families

Create Hope is based in Bracknell Forest and offers emotional support to children, young people and families. It was created by myself, Catherine Hockley, CEO – when I witnessed a greater need for therapeutic services in Berkshire through my direct work with families, schools, voluntary and statutory services.

We support families impacted by different environmental issues such as domestic abuse, family separation, bereavement, bullying etc offering therapeutic services, which include play therapy, family support, and therapy for parents delivered at our centre in Bracknell Forest and through work with local schools. We have identified the importance of working with the whole family and try to make that the case with all we do.

I applied to the Innovation Fund to pilot a series of therapeutic family fun days. Since COVID we have received more referrals for emotional support directly from families in the local area. Many of the issues are environmental and have therefore impacted all members of the family unit and while we currently offer longer-term therapeutic work, it has been recognised that there is a need for families to come together and develop their emotional resilience as a whole unit.

My hope is that the pilot family therapeutic days will allow families in Bracknell forest, who have some emotional need, to focus together on building connection, giving them the opportunity to work through different creative team building experiences and creative therapeutic activities throughout the day - with the hope that a supportive community will grow and develop also.

The family fun days will offer a safe space to strengthen and develop relationships within the family unit and outside of them, with the opportunity to chat through the challenges of everyday life with the Create Hope staff and receive additional therapeutic support where relevant.

The days will run during the school holidays of Easter and summer 2022 and will be tailored by age, encouraging all family members to join including grandparents, foster carers, or other relatives who form part of the family unit.

Learn more about Create Hope

Supporting children and families through finding new skills in chess

My name is Jon Lloyd and I work as a chess tutor for the charity Chess in Schools and Communities. You can read about my project below or watch my video (opens in a new tab).

People wouldn’t traditionally think of chess as a way of reducing social isolation, but over the last five years of teaching chess to children, older people and people living with or affected by cancer, I have seen an increase in self-esteem and socialisation among participants.

Learning to play chess can help children and families who are feeling isolated or suffering from stress. It can develop skills such as planning, decision-making and strategy - raising confidence as a new skill is learnt in a social setting. What’s more chess is totally absorbing; people who suffer cancer have said that learning to play chess gave them one or two hours respite from the anxieties caused by their disease.

During my time as a chess tutor I have also been particularly encouraged for the efficacy of the program to increase confidence and benefit behaviour for children in a local special educational needs school.

Bracknell Forest Council Adult public health team have supported me with marketing and publicity. Psychometric evaluations, devised by the council, have clearly shown the benefits for socialisation, learning and fun for over 150 local residents to date.

I applied to the Innovation Fund to allow me to bring chess to families, especially those who may have been isolated, lost confidence or developed anxiety over the course of the pandemic. Chess will be taught over ten weeks, in 1 hour easy-to-learn lessons. Community library clubs are already established so allowing learners to continue playing the game.

Chess is a social game, but more so it is a game that introduces sociability at a pace dictated by the learner. A learner can interact as much or as little with an opponent, or other learners, as he or she wants. There are no restrictions in playing chess for people with physical mobility or illnesses and can be played between age groups from same or different generations.

Learning to play chess in a group will encourage socialisation but with no pressure on an individual to do so and therefore I would like the program to become recognised as one to receive referrals from the council, schools and GP practices - especially for children and families that may not enjoy or feel confident with the traditional offers available.

Supporting children and young people's mental health

Buckinghamshire MIND supports people with mental health problems living across Buckinghamshire and East Berkshire. We tackle stigma and discrimination head-on, we help our service users to live safe, purposeful and fulfilled lives, and we strongly believe in their recovery.

The children and young people’s team have been running since 2015; promoting emotional wellbeing in primary and secondary schools. We work with school students, staff and parents taking a whole school approach, sharing mental health awareness, building communication and listening skills and reducing the stigma of mental illness.

We know that 83% of children and young people have reported that their mental health has become a bit or a lot worse owing to the COVID-19 Pandemic (Young Mind Survey March 2020) and this is supported by testimonials from schools.

In anticipation of the heightened need for support we applied to the Innovation Fund to allow us to offer a Steps to Wellbeing club, within 5 primary schools across East Berkshire, to children identified by the school and parents as those who could benefit from the sessions to boost their wellbeing.

The course shares wellbeing strategies in a fun and engaging way providing the opportunity to socialise and build confidence, sharing important messages on mental health, awareness and the support available.

Each of the 5 sessions has a specific focus which follows the 5 ways to wellbeing why these are important, how we can practice them and how the children can bring them into their everyday lives. Some examples of activities are below:

Connect – Team building games, conversation starters and listening skills

Be Active – Dancing, sports, yoga

Take notice – mindful colouring, breathing exercises, nature drawing and music

Keep Learning – quizzes and fun facts

Give – self appreciation, compliments and kindness

Knowing that 20% of mental health problems are established before the age of 14 we believe it’s important that the Steps to Wellbeing club is delivered to Primary school age children allowing these vital lessons about looking after our mental health to be gained early on and carried forward into secondary school and adolescences.

The feedback that we have received to date has been very positive both from teachers and the children who have participated. 67% said they really enjoyed the programme and 77% said they now know how to manage their wellbeing.

“It was 100000000 % good” said one Year 6 pupil

A year 5 pupil told us “I'm so sad this club is over and I now want to be a wellbeing ambassador”

Visit Buckinghamshire MIND website.

Creating a garden for our children

Penn Wood Primary and Nursery School, based in Slough, has over 700 pupils ranging from 3-11 years and are always looking for ways to enhance the learning of the children based here.

Additional support is particularly pertinent at the moment, given the pandemic and the impact on education, especially for those families and children who have struggled.

Our idea is a quite radical. We wish to convert the garden of the old school house, previously the caretaker’s residence, in order to connect learning at home with learning at school. The garden will be a place where we can offer a space beyond the school building to capture a zest for learning, enabling all our children to flourish and thrive beyond the confines of the classroom. It will be used to support our commitment to meet the needs of our children with SEN Support (101 children), children with Education Health Care Plans (19 children), as well as our most vulnerable.

We have applied to the Innovation Fund in order to develop the area to provide both physical stimulus through games and gardening as well as mental wellbeing through areas of seating and observation of nature. We hope to provide a number of raised beds where the children can plant their own vegetables and fruit, nurture them and watch them grow, even being able to take them into the house, wash them, prepare them and turn them into something to take home or even to the community during harvest time. In order to achieve this, we will need everything from seeds and composters to water butts and tools!

We would also like to offer physical stimulus through play by offering a number of outdoor games where children can connect with others and improve communication and social skills such as sharing and team building.

For mental wellbeing, there would be an area of natural wildlife, where children can sit peacefully on comfortable seating and be at one with nature, maybe whilst reading a book. A bird feeder and bug hotel would also be used to stimulate the children’s curiosity with their surroundings.

There are so many benefits to our project:

• The school is in an area of high deprivation and this funding will benefit the children at the heart of the community.

• Some children attending school don’t have a garden or area to relax at home and rely heavily on school to provide some vital life skills, which this project will offer. It is hoped that children will take their learnings home and encourage families to engage with the ideas.

• It will hopefully heighten children’s understanding of where their food comes from and help them to learn some basic gardening and culinary skills which will enrich their lives as young people.

• By involving the local community – gardening groups/garden centre/parents the benefits of the project can reach further and deeper into the lives of those families and individuals affected by the recent pandemic by bringing people with a common purpose together

• It is important to give back and to share the rewards of the labour. By creating a full circle of a wider community reaping the benefits such as harvest food and donations to food banks.

We would love you to support our project and any contributions or connections you can support us with would be very welcome.

Creating an early years outside learning area

We are a primary school currently with 186 children, located in Colnbrook, Slough the 7th most deprived ward in Slough (out of 14 Wards) with 22.5% of children in our area, and neighbouring Poyle, at risk of living in poverty (an increase from 20.9% in the previous year) and the likelihood that COVID-19 has had a detrimental effect and increased deprivation further we want to do everything we can to support our children and families.

The impact of Covid has been felt by everyone in our school community and we are very aware that many of our children and families have spent extended periods of time inside their homes, which for many of our families are small and cramped with little if any outside space. This, in addition to the fact our school is located under the Heathrow flight path and alongside a large haulage company, is why we wish to counteract the damaging effects of the local environment as much as we can and offer the children an exciting, interesting, motivating, welcoming outside space, with opportunity for them to play, exercise, learn and develop - a haven for wildlife and nature.

We have applied to the Innovation Fund to support the creation of our Early Years Foundation Stage outside area, planned to encourage diversity of wildlife and nature and provide lots of opportunities for children to develop their physical health and mental well- being.

We already do a lot of work with the children and families around healthy eating and good oral health but would like to be able to expand this creating:

• A digging area, vegetable patch and herb garden
• A quiet mindfulness area that will encourage children to pay attention to the present moment and will help to develop skills of self - regulation and emotional wellbeing
• Climbing equipment to develop the children’s gross motor skills and proprioception development
• Communication friendly spaces for children to talk, socialise and connect with others
• A water wall to provide opportunity to develop gross and fine motor skills and an understanding of the world around them

Due to the fact we already have a large sheltered area, this area will be able to be used in all weathers and we are hoping that the newly developed outside space will provide a Covid -safe space for groups to meet so that we can hold parents meetings, provide parent and carer support and information sessions run by ourselves and also external agencies such as the oral health team, local library service and community support officers etc.

We are hoping that eventually the space will be used by community groups such as rainbows and beavers. We could also have parent and child groups meet during the school holidays, which is often a time that parents struggle with their mental health.

At the moment our outside space is very tired and lacking in resources - the school budget will only stretch so far, but the Innovation Fund is making our plans more possible and we look forward to sharing our progress with you.

Creating Play and Learn Together groups

Home Start Bracknell Forest (HSBF) has been helping disadvantaged children & their families across Bracknell for over 27 years. We are a preventative service, supporting families before they reach crisis point.

Throughout this time, we have established strong working relationships with the other services supporting families in Bracknell including health visitors, midwifes, GP's, Early Help Teams, Family Hubs and other charities, who refer families into our service.

Bracknell Council acknowledges the positive impact of HSBF early intervention work and contributes towards the cost of our service. We work to complement the statutory provision in our local community. Working in partnership with local statutory and voluntary sector services we form part of a network of support for Bracknell families. Our small staff team of 4, is able to respond flexibly to changing needs, has 25+ years’ experience working for Home-Start.

We applied to the Innovation Fund because we wanted to enhance our existing support offered to struggling families living in Bracknell by developing a new ‘Play and Learn Together’ Family Group.

The group (which launched in March 2022) is aimed at young children, under 3, and their parents living in Bracknell Forest who have been disadvantaged due to the lack of opportunities to play, socialise and learn as a result of COVID-19 restrictions. The pandemic’s impact on infants/babies has left them disadvantaged, by not having exposure to normal social situations and organic experiences. Due to the lack of social and developmental environments such as baby/toddler groups, opportunities to learn, socialise with their peers, developed cognitive/fine-motor skills and essential skills including holding a pencil, sitting a in group and opportunities to learn to manager their own emotions have been missed.

At the weekly group, a newly recruited Co-ordinator, supported by trained volunteers, develops and delivers a programme of activities specially designed to enhance the child’s socialisation, communication, and cognitive development. Structured activities including story-time, craft play, singing, snack-time and role-play, supports the child to learn key social, emotional, and behavioural resilience when playing with other children and develop the skills required in preparation for education settings. Additionally, caregivers are encouraged to continue establishing positive role modelling, fun games and activities learnt in the group within the home setting.

Through building closer contacts with the child development team we have been able to invite speakers and guests to attend the group who provide support, advice, and up-to-date information to parents on various issues such as brain development, good dental care, healthy eating, child safety and sleep routines and looking after ourselves. Families are referred to the group via our existing local partners, including health visitors, Early Help, statutory and non-statutory organisations, families may also refer themselves.

We have seen a significant increase in the number of self-referrals into our service over the last 18 months from new parents as they struggle to come to terms with the traumatic experiences of becoming a new parent in lockdown, having little access to services and information and having no access to friends and family support. Through accessing Home-Start Bracknell Forest group the caregiver and child will have increased confidence to independently explore and access local services and activities reducing family isolation.

One parent said "I am so impressed with how this group is set up, it is so accessible to all, it’s great"

Supporting Voluntary Organisations that work with Families

Slough CVS is a small charity, supporting the voluntary and community sector in Slough, Windsor, Ascot and Maidenhead and surrounding areas. We are passionate about helping the voluntary sector to work more effectively in the local community as they provide support to more vulnerable people including families and children from many diverse communities.

We applied to the Innovation Fund to allow us to run a Train the Trainer programme which targeted our voluntary and community organisations operating in Slough and surrounding areas working directly with and supporting, families and children.

The aim of this programme is to develop and enhance the skills of particularly micro and small Black, Asian Minority and Ethnic (BAME) community leaders so that they can develop the necessary knowledge and expertise to share and upskill their community volunteers. This Train the Trainer programme is innovative in that it will focus on supporting the needs of diverse communities, those with different perspectives and from varied cultures.

We see a real need for this programme based on what people tell us. For example the word ‘depression’ is non-existent in many cultures. The shame connected to mental health in some cultures, causes families to create a façade. This is also prominent when faced with other learning disabilities such as autism, dyslexia, anxiety, bi-polar and other mental health issues. We are told that particularly within some Asian families, the misconception is that marriage is the solution to ‘the problems’ faced by those impacted by Mental Health or other learning difficulties and this can prevent people receiving the understand, help and support they need.

We want to help to change this narrative, and this can only be done through the support of people within those communities that can help make an impact. The Train the Trainer programme will be open to the wider voluntary sector as well as those from diverse backgrounds as the idea is to create a group of people from varied backgrounds and experiences who can share best practice and increase awareness of how culture, traditions and the family network play a tremendous part on people’s mental health and wellbeing.

In late March 2022 we completed our first course, celebrating the achievements of eight local people who qualified and will now be able to train others. Through this process our relationships were strengthened which will also benefit local communities.

With continuous monitoring and feedback throughout the course we have identified areas for improvement and where we can offer extra support. We are excited by the interest and enthusiasm that has been shown towards the course.

Supporting families through boxing

The Britwell Youth and Community Project (BYCP) has worked within the Britwell ward of Slough since 1959 and is the only youth provision in the area. The project provides a range of leisurely activities for young people afterschool and during the school holiday period in order to develop their physical, mental and spiritual capacities so that they may grow to full maturity as individuals and members of society.

We applied to the Innovation Fund in order to run weekly boxing sessions over the course of a year for local young people. Based in the Britwell area of Slough, the activity will cater to young people who attend the club ages 8+ regardless of ethnicity, sexual orientation etc. On the estate, there is a higher substance misuse than the national average, poor fitness, higher obesity levels, poor educational achievement and it is also considered a hotspot for gang culture. A new activity will encourage young people to keep physically active, boost their confidence/self-esteem, teach discipline and give them the opportunity to try out something they normally would not be able to because of financial costs. With the option of both male/female coach, engaging in this activity will also breakdown any stereotypes that this sport is for everyone male/female despite being a male dominated sport.

Alongside the boxing coach, our Sports Development Youth Worker will join in on the sessions to support the young people. He will have the opportunity to learn first-hand from the boxing coach having the opportunity to upskill themselves.

The sessions will be for young people ages 8+ who will gain these new skills, but it will also be for parents who will not have the financial stress to sign up their children to an extra-curricular activity. The wider community will also benefit as there will be less young people congregating at the local shops and intimidating residents as they will be engaged in an active activity and in turn stay on at the BYCP for potentially the full three hour session to engage in a wide range of activities including lyric writing, games, arts and crafts, other sports activities etc.

Visit the Britwell Youth and Community Project website.

Tackling digital inequality

Holy Family Catholic School serves a diverse community in the Langley area. Lockdown has highlighted the wealth divide and how this can affect the educational performance of children. It is widely accepted that disadvantaged people generally experience less academic success than the more affluent, and, that this problem is widespread throughout the UK.

In July 2019 our school was rated outstanding by Ofsted. We believe that the quality of face-to-face teaching played a large part in achieving this judgement. The provision of high quality education for all children, in an environment where they are treated equitably, is our driving force. As a school we are enormously proud that we can deliver an outstanding education to our pupils and it is the motivating factor in setting up this project.

We believe that early intervention is the key to closing the gap in education. If we can target disadvantaged pupils with support at the earliest opportunity, we can maximise their chances of success. During lockdown period one of COVID 19 (March to July 2020) our school moved to online learning for pupils of non-keyworker children.

We became aware of several pupils who could not access the content because they did not have the necessary technology to do so, or because their parents were unable to support them due to lack of IT knowledge. We provided a number of these children with laptops and this helped some to complete the work set. When we returned to school, in line with the trend nationally, we began to set more homework online. It became apparent that the barriers of limited IT skills and access to hardware remained and that these were going to have an increasing impact on children's ability to access and benefit from programmes such as teams, Reading Eggs and MyMaths.

Our aim in setting up the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) support club, would be to ensure the children and their parents are educated in how to access and submit schoolwork online and supported through the loan of resources.

This is why we applied to the Innovation Fund - to support us with setting up this club, targeting children whose parents do not currently have the required IT skills and do not have access to technology in their homes; Those who are therefore missing out on essential skills and experience.

The club will be available to children in our school who have been identified as ‘at risk’ in terms of lack of access to IT and lack of home support to enable them to use the technology we plan to provide. At present we have identified 21 families who have limited or no access to technology in their home. This is not, by any means, the full picture of the number of families that we know are in need.

We have ambitions to enable parents from the first phase to become future champions of the project and use the knowledge they have gained to educate others. Once the initial intensive education and support phase has been completed; the project can be maintained using the parental experts along with ongoing support from school leaders. This will ensure the project is truly community based with families at core of its operation.

Creating a new wild flower area within school

We are a group of young people who are really passionate about having a say when it comes to the local environment. We are based in the SL6 area of Berkshire and our focus is to support the other local wildlife groups.

The group originated from a lack of representation of young people in the area getting involved in wildlife groups, probably due to the fact that the average age of volunteers in these groups is 30+. We know that there are many young people in the surrounding area who share a passion for environmental protection and education, so we thought that the best way to encourage their involvement would be to create a group aimed at them!

We hope to give young people opportunities to volunteer with local environmental and ecological projects and you can find out more about these on our Facebook group.

In 2020 we approached Furze Platt Senior School to plant a wildflower area. Since then, recognising the impact of Covid19 on young people and the wellbeing benefits of being outside that we have experienced ourselves, this seed of an idea has scaled up to become a new environmental and wellbeing project, for students outside of the school curriculum.

The project, designed by young people based on their experiences of life during lockdown, will see a team of young people: - Plant and maintain a new wildflower area on a bare site on the school grounds, learning about nature, working as a team, being physically active and giving back to their school. This project is a way for young people to take action together and feel empowered, reducing anxiety and improving wellbeing through engaging with nature, making changes that can have lasting impact. The workshops will be free and open to all. We will engage with up to 60 students with workshops and all 1,400 pupils and their families will indirectly benefit from a more biodiverse school site and improved wellbeing through increased opportunities for engagement with nature. The school’s long term aim is to eventually create a new reflection garden, a tranquil place for students to spend time.

Watch our video as we have successfully hired a landscaping team who offered a very competitive price to prepare the area for us ahead of the planting Spring 2022. We have also secured a number of dates for the project to run and are gaining support and interest from students. In November 2021, we ran a small group session within WildSL6 and sowed lots of native wildflower seeds donated to us from various supporters, which we are nurturing now until Spring so we can hopefully allow the children to transplant some more established plants to kickstart the meadow.

This project has started to open up the conversations about how being outside/ gardening can positively impact a young person's mental health and in response to feedback we have decided to create a wildflower guide for the young people, using the help of a local expert and a presentation which can be shown to and shared with students to start conversations and increases awareness. This will create a legacy meaning that once our project is over, the information will be available for any new pupils or existing pupils to look at and continue to progress the work we have done.

Also through the Innovation Fund we were very happy to get in touch with another successful project, Mad Millennials, and ran a joint ‘Nature Walk and Talk’ session through Maidenhead Thicket. It offered people a chance to get outside and be with nature, whilst also meeting and chatting to new people. We are hoping to set up a quarterly session, where we work more closely with Mad Millennials as the feedback was so positive.

Chalvey Activity Food and Fun Club

Chalvey Community Partnership (CCP) is a constituted community group, made up of volunteer members of the Chalvey community who are driving the Strong, Healthy and Attractive Chalvey plan.

We are so pleased with what this project has achieved to date. Watch our video and read our story below.

We are recognise that Chalvey is the most ethnically diverse ward in Slough and scores the lowest for community cohesion on the Slough Borough Councils ward rankings. 52% of Chalvey residents felt there was a very or fairly big, problem with people not treating each other with respect and consideration (Place Survey 2018) and more recently 37% said they did not feel like they belonged to the Chalvey neighbourhood (Stronger Neighbourhoods Survey 2019). Some of these survey respondents gave ‘lack of community cohesion’ and ‘no sense of community’ as reasons for this. Chalvey is also the second most deprived ward across Slough and across the Frimley area, with 20.9% of its children at risk of living in poverty. 14.9% of Chalvey children are eligible and claiming free school meals compared to 11.7% across Slough, emphasising the food poverty of Chalvey families.

In order to drive the plan, CCP work in partnership with Slough Borough Council, Thames Valley Police, NHS Frimley CCG and other relevant organisations, focusing on key issues including health and wellbeing, housing and regeneration, community safety, community cohesion, environment, businesses, skills and jobs.

We applied to the Innovation Fund in the hopes of launching an ‘Activity Food and Fun’ club looking at wellness and healthy eating within the community of Chalvey. We intend to start with children and families initially and then open up to the wider community. This will be a partnership project, led by Chalvey Community Partnership with support from Slough Borough Council, Chalvey Can and Breaking Boundaries.

Through this club we will aim to improve community cohesion, alongside the physical and mental wellbeing of the Chalvey community. Our partners, Chalvey Can and Breaking Boundaries will deliver a session of physical activity for the whole family and Chalvey Community Partnership will lead the families for dinner club, cooking healthy and nutritious food together before eating together as a group. Alongside this we will look to work with local food businesses to get involved in the project, either as sponsors, guest chefs or to help with promotion.

This will be the first project of its kind in Chalvey and we hope to use this funding as an opportunity to pilot this project, enabling us to apply for further funding and to develop this idea as we learn more through this process. As the project grows we will open up the club to the whole population of Chalvey rather than exclusively to families.

An update - Adapting our model due to facing some barriers in getting the cooking element of our project off the ground, we have chosen instead to focus on community cohesion, fun and getting people active. To date we have successfully run 5 CAFF events, including two events joining with a local litter picking society to help clean the local area. We currently have two events in the pipeline, including one for the Queen’s jubilee.

These events have not only brought together local communities but have helped families get active through a range of sports activities. Additionally, we have had gardening at the local allotments and have organised free experiences at the local ice arena.

Between 40-100 attendees have come along to each event! The families have all fed back positively to us and would like these events to continue. The events have also drawn the attention of local counsellors and local community police officers, who have attended and supported our events.

We look forward to continuing to share our journey with you and you can see more on our instagram page @chalveycp

Supporting bereaved children

Proudly serving our community for more than 30 years, Thames Hospice offers world-class palliative and end-of-life care and support to people aged 16 and over across East Berkshire and South Buckinghamshire.

Our vision is quality of life, to the end of life and we treat everyone with kindness and compassion and provide a safe and caring environment which is at the heart of everything we do to support families facing a life-limiting illness.

We provide the highest quality nursing, medical and therapeutic care supporting the physical, social and emotional needs of our patients and their loved ones. We offer a wide range of therapies to support our patients’ physical, psychological, social and spiritual needs including counselling and complementary therapies covering an area of roughly a million people.

As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, there was an urgent need for our sector to look for new ways to improve the delivery of care to those who are terminally ill and to prepare and support their families through bereavement. Demand for our services is increasing faster than we have ever seen before. In October 2021 we moved to our new Hospice building at Bray Lake near Maidenhead, which has doubled our capacity and allowed us to provide better long term care for more patients and their families.

We applied to the Innovation Fund to enable us to offer two family days for bereaved children, young people and their parents/carers. We hope to offer a Christmas 2021 event and a summer event in 2022.

Our Family Days will help children and young people facing the loss of a close family member, to establish connections and relationships with others around them going through the same experience, and to give them a sense of community in which they feel included and not the odd one out.

This work is needed more than ever due to the impact of the pandemic, more traumatic deaths and where children and young people have been cut off from family and support networks.

Thames Hospice already offers one to-one and family sessions with our trained Family & Patient Support Team to help prevent bereavement having a chronic impact on their lives, which could be long-lasting and the family days will allow us to develop peer-support activities equipping the children and their families with coping strategies that can be used long into the future when our specialist bereavement support has reached completion.

Visit thameshospice.org.uk.

Tackling serious youth violence

Black Roses Support, is an organisation aimed at helping young people and their families who are involved, either directly or indirectly, with serious youth violence (including those impacted by child sexual exploitation, modern day slavery, gangs etc) and those who would be classed as NEET – Not Engaged in Education, Employment or Training.

I am a qualified Social Worker with experience in the local authority, working with young people who face challenges such as those above. Myself and my team have worked in schools as well as in the local community and after years of working with the young people of Slough, specifically with this targeted group of young people at risk of serious youth violence, I know work like this is essential to supporting young people away from lives of violence.

With the grant from the Innovation fund, our project can focus its work around supporting young people in the transition to secondary education in both their physical and mental wellbeing. Participants will receive the wraparound care of the project as we’ll support them, not only to be physically active, but also to think about skills they want to develop.

A public health approach to the issue of serious youth violence is one which is key to supporting these young people, rather than vilifying them. Research has shown that young people with adverse childhood experiences are more likely to develop issues around anxiety, depression and poor anger management, which can in turn contribute to that young person being vulnerable to joining a gang or becoming violent themselves.

We aim to provided physical activities such as boxing and football training, paired with holistic support in the shape of mentoring and skills pathways - such as barbering training, DJ training and sound engineering sessions.

Through the mentoring, which underpins the whole project, the young people are helped in learning how to manage and express their emotions and feelings in a positive and productive way. The project aims to offer a safe environment for these young people to work on themselves, building their self-esteem, confidence and skills.

The project will primarily target young people living in Slough in the last years of primary education, at risk of serious youth violence, building a rapport with such young people will allow our team to support them in reaching their full potential and we are fortunate to have the experience of dedicated volunteers who have been in their position to support us.

This project looks to break the cycle and contribute towards the improvement and de-escalation of young people’s deteriorating mental health issues which could have the potential to turn into serious youth violence.

Creating support through mentoring

We are Mad Millennials Mentors (MMM). Created and run by millennials – a generalised generational designation referring to people born c1982-1998 - we offer peer support groups.

Nationally, there are 12 peer support groups helping young people all over the country and MMM has been running in Berkshire since 2019 - covering Slough, Bracknell Forest, Windsor, and Maidenhead, though we accept attendees from across all of Berkshire.

Studies have shown that UK millennials are amongst the most isolated demographic and are lonelier than ever before, a situation only exacerbated since the Covid-19 pandemic (MHF, 2020). Millennials face increasingly pervasive internal and external worries and pressures. In an ever more volatile world, issues of self-acceptance and self-esteem, relationship and financial pressures (to name a few) take a toll on the mental health of a generation.

MMM provides an accessible service by and for, millennials experiencing mental health challenges, emotional difficulties and societal pressures - creating safe, local spaces for expression and support. MMM sessions are open to anyone sharing similar generational worries and we provide attendees with a comfortable environment in which to proactively manage their mental health and wellbeing and communicate their difficulties with people that understand their troubles and experiences.

The MMM mentors scheme focuses primarily on mental wellbeing, but due to our generational focus we can help younger people who may be feeling anxious or having difficulty managing change, those who have families of their own and individuals who may be feeling socially isolated, by offering them no-pressure, community support based on compassion, inclusion, and non-judgement. We are hugely committed to engaging with those from different backgrounds who may feel excluded or discriminated upon.

We know it is impossible to cover every issue of concern with any degree of depth, therefore our MMM mentors are provided with clear signposting resources for issues of concern out of their depth. Our mentors are mental health first aid trained (MHFA), safeguard trained and following an MMM comprehensive training programme. They are also provided with a resource pack that includes principles similar to the five ways of wellbeing to help facilitate their discussions and encourage attendees to explore each month’s theme.

Our unique approach to mental wellbeing support means our themes cut across many Frimley Clinical Commissioning Group priority areas, namely loneliness and social isolation, anxiety and managing change/transition as well as providing families/parents/carer support.

We applied to the Innovation Fund to help us to ‘level up’ the Berkshire group against others across the country. The innovation fund has given us the structure and financial freedom to experiment with our peer support group setup in Berkshire. The leadership team of the organisation has gained significant amounts of experience in all areas of programme operation, volunteer coordination and seen the value of bringing on new members to help run the programme - recognising the diverse areas of knowledge and the skill sets that each of our team brings, seeking out others with complementary attributes where needed.

The Innovation Fund process has also been immensely helpful in creating new connections. In November 2021 we held a joint event with Wild SL6 bringing people together for a nature walk and peer group session. We are currently planning a community feedback session in Bracknell Forest to hear first hand from young people about the types of support they would be willing to engage with and feel they would benefit from the most.

The new connections forged have helped us embed ourselves in amongst the community level forms of support available to young people in Berkshire, and become more acquainted with similar minded organisations.

We recognise that communities last much longer than projects do and we hope that by facilitating a strong community bond between the attendees of MMM sessions and events in Berkshire, as well as integration with local formal and informal care systems, that a community can develop and that the care and support will continue to be shared amongst young people living in the Berkshire area.

TAG Tots - Supporting parents and carers

The Autism Group is a Maidenhead based charity, committed to supporting and enhancing the lives of young people on the spectrum, their parents and carers. We offer a warm, well informed welcome through our special interest clubs, workshops and parent support services.

We know the struggles that parents and carers are having on a regular basis. They tell us that they feel uncomfortable joining mainstream parenting groups for fear of being judged and it was because of this clear need that we applied to the Innovation Fund to run support and information sessions for parents/carers whose preschool children have an Autism diagnosis or are on the pathway to assessment.

We already offer workshops and 1-1 support as part of our work with GEMS - Autism and ADHD support services East Berkshire. However, we recognise the importance of bringing parents together to share their experiences as a reinforcement to learning and to reduce their feelings of isolation.

We operate a crèche alongside the parent sessions to better facilitate attendance and provide the chance to demonstrate strategies to help parents help their children and to introduce some structure that mirrors what the children might expect to see in the Foundation stage of school - eg practice sitting in a group circle for snack time/ tidy up time

Getting the right venue was important to us and we have partnered with Larchfield Children’s Centre in Maidenhead where the group meets. Our parent support session are facilitated by two of our autism trained support workers who have been delighted to be working with pre-school children in such an ideal environment. Larchfield Children’s Centre has toys, a sensory room and a small enclosed outdoor area, is close to the town centre, on bus routes and has local on-street parking.

The space has enabled parents to mingle with each other and see their children being supported by autism trained workers using tried and tested strategies which they could then use themselves in the home environment.

It feels so positive to be bringing together a like-minded set of parents with young children, recently diagnosed, and to be able to offer them support and information as well as facilitating a group that has already begun to form bonds and friendships outside of our sessions.

The Children’s Centres consider this is much needed and are very keen to work with us going forwards: The Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) Family Support Worker for Early Years, identified families for our pilot group and is asked to attend the groups on occasion. We know of nothing like this currently running in the area and understand the isolation parents describe.

The Innovation Fund has not only provided us with the opportunity to test this idea but also connected us with key members of staff from supportive organisations who have been able to input to our plans, providing advice and guidance.

We would like to expand this type of support group across the other local authorities once we are sure we have the best practicable model shaped by listening to parents, carers, families and our partners.

You can view a our Innovation Fund application presentation.

Parenting Support Sessions

Achieving for Children works across Windsor and Maidenhead providing children’s services. Our mission is to provide children and their families with the support and services they need to live happy, healthy and successful lives. We strive to achieve excellence in everything we do by putting children and young people first in the design, delivery and evaluation of every service we provide.

We applied to the Innovation Fund to allow us to protect the effectiveness of our emotional support groups for parents which helps them manage stress and anxiety, promotes their well-being and enables them to cope better with parenting their children and managing their daily lives.

Many of the parents referred to the Early Help Service and Social Care are experiencing stress and anxiety and there has been an increase in referrals related to mental health, well-being and domestic abuse following the national lockdowns due to the Covid19 pandemic. We also know parents who have had to cope with additional stressful circumstances, such as having children with additional needs, domestic abuse and relationship breakdowns would particularly benefit from an emotional support group.

Our sessions include small group work, group discussion and some exercises for parents to complete at home. They look at how anxiety and stress impacts on individuals physically, their thoughts and behaviour and provides strategies to manage stress and anxiety. We look at the difference between stress and anxiety the effect on self-esteem, how to better communicate and set goals.

Alongside the benefits above, the sessions can reduce isolation and loneliness, giving parents the opportunity to meet others and build up a support network. We hope we can help parents’ model healthy, helpful coping mechanisms in relation to stress and anxiety; that will impact and influence how their children learn to manage emotions and behaviours in relation to stress and anxiety.

The packs of information we use, that are central to our programme, come from a company who has now ceased to exist. The monies from the Innovation Fund will help us to produce these vital materials in house and continue to offer them to parents for no cost. In addition we want to make these courses as accessible as possible and will use funding to offer a crèche and transportation.

It is really important to us that this course is delivered face to face and we have worked hard to ensure we have a large enough venue which is covid safe to be able to do this. Part of the funding will help us to secure this venue going forward.

We will also be looking at how we can grow possibly through running an evening or Saturday morning group, with fathers in mind, allowing us to accommodate those who work full time but who would benefit from the programme.

You can read more about RBWM services. (opens in a new window)

Supporting Neurodiverse young people through our new Kimel Café

We support neurodiverse young people, particularly those diagnosed with autism, aged between 17yrs – 26yrs who are Not in Employment, Education or Training (NEET) and support them into employment, identify further educational needs or source meaningful volunteering opportunities.

We think our support is more successful than other provisions because we are run by autistic people with personal experience and we ask the young people what they actually want.

We focus on educating the young people about the positives of their condition whereas previously they may have only been aware of the negatives. This has gratifyingly provoked many “light-bulb moments” validating our approach.

We firmly believe that collaboration and cooperation is the way forward and we do not like to re-invent the wheel or tread on others’ toes.

Those suitable, we place on our 12 week employability and personal development programme which has been a great success with 71% of the first cohort getting a job.

This programme covers:

1. Laying the Groundwork for Employment

2. Health, self-awareness and communication

3. Executive Functioning, Emotional Regulation and Sensory needs

4. Relationships, boundaries and communication

5. Independence, responsibility and creativity

6. Neurodiversity and work

This course currently covers Wokingham and we applied to the Innovation Fund to allow us to expand into East Berkshire, offering the same support to young people across the area and to support the opening of our Kimel Café, . This funding allows us to extend this course to those who are not council funded and who cannot fund the course personally.

We keep our numbers small but the impact to those individuals, their family and to society as a whole is huge.

We hope that you will support us and follow our journey at www.kimelcafe.com