Impact

The generous grant from The Diversity Project Charity directly benefitted our Manchester branch of Centrepoint Works. Your donation has been spent in the areas we deemed it was most urgently required, to support all aims of our delivery of CP Works in Manchester.

Over 2019, CP Works Manchester’s greatest focus was on training and learning. This was to address the clear need and importance in helping young people gain qualifications, confidence and the skills needed to access the workplace and onto the road to financial independence.

Over the last year, Centrepoint Works launched its short Functional Skills courses, the aim of which is to boost the young person’s confidence and self-esteem. We have also just implemented a unique education solution, which is focussed on identifying and supporting learners with hidden learning needs. The tool consists of a digital assessment that identifies the neurodiversity in under 30 minutes. Based on the assessment, intervention strategies will then be provided to the learner to help improve their cognitive abilities and achieve success in their learning.

In terms of statistics from the last year within Manchester CP Works:
– 20 young people have benefited from our AG Information service (career and training Advice and Guidance)
– 4 young people enrolled onto CP Works learning programme
– 3 young people have been supported into employment
– 1 young person has been supported into university
– 3 young people have been supported to undertake training with external providers

Your donation enabled and supported this delivery to happen.

The kind and generous £10,000 grant from the The Diversity Project Charity contributed towards the running of Child Bereavement UK’s National Helpline and Information Resource. The Helpline provides support, information and guidance to bereaved children, young people, adults and families and the professionals who care for them. The National Helpline is available Monday – Friday 9am to 5pm is manned by a team of trained bereavement support practitioners. All calls to the line are free of charge making it accessible to all who need it.

The Diversity Project Charity funded our Changing the Game initiative – which is our main work, partnering with state schools to deliver breakfast, lunch and after-school youth clubs.

Over the last year, we worked in 17 boroughs across London, running 46 programmes. To deliver our programmes and ensure we are working with young people most in need, we only partner with schools where at least 67% of pupils are living in deprivation. Across our programmes, we engaged over 4,000 young people who were identified as being the most vulnerable and most in need of our specialist support. We worked very closely with the school staff to identify, support, and monitor the young people on their journey of improvement with us. The feedback from our coaches, partner schools and participants clearly show that the young people we work with demonstrate many emotional issues including being withdrawn, very low confidence, low mood, anxiety, inattentive, and unable to focus.

As young people living in deprivation face extended barriers in their quest to become and stay physically active, Greenhouse employs full-time sport coaches to work directly in schools where lack of equipment, transport and cost is not an issue. Our projects across London looked to work intensively with young people, and support from The Diversity Project Charity helped to provide:

• 46 sports coaches working with young people aged 11-16 at partner secondary schools to raise aspirations, attendance and attainment. They led by example not just on the sports court but in the classrooms and the corridors and positively impact the entire school community.

• Developing 4,467 young people’s social, thinking, emotional and physical skills.

• 46,000 hours of coaching and mentoring directly to 4,467 young people.

• Extensive sports clubs – breakfast, lunch and after-school – running on average 7 times a week per programme.

• Additional education support – homework clubs and leadership opportunities created and implemented by our coaches, e.g. youth leadership groups where young people can learn leadership skills and gain a sport specific official qualification.

• Weekly 1:1 and small group mentoring sessions per programme for the most vulnerable people to address behavioural, academic or attendance issues.

• Four weeks of school holiday camps per year per programme providing vital opportunities to participate in activities outside of term time. These run in both October and February half term, the Easter holidays and throughout August.

• Competitive participation opportunities throughout the three years – the selection for these opportunities harnesses participants enthusiasm for their programme to achieve behavioural change and improve school attendance.

Story from Jordan

“I came from a very working-class background: I grew up on Old Kent Road and my school had the 2nd worst GCSE results in Southwark. It was an uphill battle to get noticed, to get better, and to get into a good university.

I joined the Greenhouse basketball programme when I was 13. I was in middle-set, if not bottom-set, in every class. My ambitions were low, and I had already been excluded twice from school.

After the 2nd exclusion I got kicked off the basketball team for 3 months and I had to prove myself to get back on the team. Getting excluded from school was a catalyst for me and having to work my way back onto the programme meant I started to take basketball and school more seriously. My coach, Mike, empowered me to start behaving. I began to get good at basketball, which was the first time in my life I was good at anything, and I became the best player in our school. I didn’t understand the connection at the time, but my grades shot through the roof. I was in top-set for everything by Year 11. By the time I got to Year 12, I knew that I wasn’t going to make it as a professional basketball player. But Mike gave me the tools to pursue higher education and I got into Leeds University, got an internship at Goldman Sachs, and am now an associate at BlackRock at 25 years old.

What Mike taught me was more than basketball – he taught me the game of life. What it meant to be a man and a team player, taking responsibility and being respectful. He was a friend, a coach, a brother, and a father figure. And I was so lucky to have that in my life. What he did was more than what any teacher would do at school. He gave me over and above his pay grade and he gave me more time that I should have had. I am very grateful for that. My life could have gone in a very different direction.“

We spent our £10,000 grant on the central costs for the support we offer in London and across the UK. This included the salaries for our:
– Cancer Support Specialists – Maggie’s Cancer Support Specialists are experienced oncology nurses, radiographers and other healthcare professionals. They are here to listen to how people are feeling, answer any questions they may have and
guide them to the right information.
– Clinical Psychologists – Our Clinical Psychologists offer support to people with cancer, if things are getting on top of them, if their scared, worried or feeling down. People with cancer and their families can see one of our psychologists in private, in a group or with your family.
– Benefit Advisors – Maggie’s Benefits Advisors help people with cancer find out about financial support they’re entitled to and help with practical things like parking permits and housing.

In the 2019-20 Academic year, Open Academy have worked in collaboration with 22 artistic partners to help make music in a wide range of contexts, with people young and old, and from all walks of life through practical participatory music workshops. In the most recent Academic year, almost 7,000 people have benefited from Open Academy activities, which could not have happened without the support of The Diversity Project Charity.

Between September 2019 and July 2020, Open Academy has reached:
• 5,126 primary and secondary school children
• 824 toddlers and parents
• 757 vulnerable adults and people living with dementia
• 87 children and adults in hospitals

One such example has been our work with Royal London Hospital. Each term, Open Academy students are given the opportunity to act as supporting musicians in a series of participatory creative music workshops for day patients at the hospital and their families and carers. The sessions have included performances of repertoire, improvisation, singing, song writing, conducting, musical storytelling and more.

Open Academy has allowed our students to share the social and health benefits of music making in the community; as one Open Academy Fellow noted, “I’ve learnt so much about the transformative power of music. Whether you’re 5, 25 or 95, music can break down barriers and forge connections.”

All Open Academy activities are run free of charge, without passing any costs on to the beneficiaries. This has enabled us to ensure that the work of Open Academy reaches those who will truly benefit from it. Open Academy has contributed towards school children learning new skills, toddlers and parents learning through music, and providing important practical participatory experiences to vulnerable adults, people living with dementia, and children and adults in hospitals. It has also led to creating a legacy of training for the next generation of creative music leaders who will continue similar work throughout their careers.

Open Academy is the Royal Academy of Music’s Learning, Participation and Community initiative. Working with its artistic and community partners, it offers opportunities for students and project participants to explore making music together. These include workshops with children and young people in mainstream schools and SEND (special educational needs and disability) settings, disabled people, those receiving treatment in hospitals, residents and staff of care homes, and people attending day centres.

Participants have shared the following feedback about Open Academy projects they attended this year, which we are delighted to share:

‘The music was powerful because the instruments were loud. It was showing how they felt.’ (Primary School participant)
‘The live music was so mesmerizing. My little boy loved it.’ (Parent at Academy Tots)
‘I learnt that music can make you feel happy and relaxed, so it is a good idea to play music or sing or dance if you are feeling upset or anxious.’ (Primary School participant)
(Photo within)

The funding has been used as specified in the Donation Agreement to support development of the Cluster Model and the “Connected Communities” project which was launched in April 2019.

Sported brought ten North London members together to focus on tackling crime and anti-social behaviour in their communities. The groups shared their experience and challenges with youth violence in their local contexts. Interestingly, whilst the risks their young people faced had similarities, the approach in mitigating those challenges were quite different amongst participants, for example providing diversionary activities with an employment and training emphasis; supporting mental health and safely dealing with emotions; and creating aspirations and new opportunities to re-orient those at risk.

Our external training provider (Project 507) then delivered sessions to build the knowledge and confidence of participating groups in supporting young people that are at risk. This began with understanding and appreciating a ‘trauma informed approach’ which recognises the structural as well as interpersonal violence many young people in these contexts have experienced. The training focused on how groups could help young people in simple ways by being more aware of language, empathy, and differentiating from other institutions’ treatment of young people.

Five of the ten groups were matched with one of our professional volunteer mentors in 2019. The mentors worked with them to identify their organisational needs using our Capacity Measurement Tool and to create a plan to address these needs. These groups have then had focused support around their specific areas of need including governance, marketing, funding strategy and policies. The remaining five groups are receiving mentor support in 2020.

Bringing these groups together has facilitated new informal links and opportunities for collaboration. For example, one group is supporting another with marketing expertise, others are arranging exchange visits to observe their delivery and learn from each other.

In June 2019 The Diversity Project Charity kindly made a grant of £10,000 to provide a bursary so that no child should miss out on an adventure activity experience because of financial circumstances. The fund was put to use immediately and between June and November 2019 benefiting 339 children over 15 different schools or organisations.

The beneficiaries of the bursary are unable to provide photographs of individuals but the material on our website www.stubbers.co.uk is in the public domain.

TESTIMONIAL ‐ HOUNSLOW PARTICIPATION TEAM
“I have previously attended a residential with Stubbers in the past with my previous employers Catch22. I have recently joined Hounslow council as a Participation officer with the guidelines of my role being to engage young people in positive activities and to improve upon awareness of issues young people will face during their transition to adulthood. This as you can imagine is a very broad spectrum and I plan to obtain positive outcomes by completing a range of group and one 2 one work alongside working with numerous external agencies. I was amazed when I joined this post to find out that with the looked after care leavers and leaving care groups both attending annual residential each, none of them had been to Stubbers Adventure Centre, when I explained some of the activities such as sailing and outdoor laser tag the amazement on their face prompted me to make attempts to obtain a visit that I would love to be a regular annual trip for both group. The group I hope to bring will be a part of the Participation remit and will consist of 17‐21‐year‐old young people currently within care or recent care leavers from Hounslow Social Services. This group will consist of young people from troubled pasts, one of the main pressing issues within the Borough of Hounslow with the young females being the main targets is Child Sexual Exploitation and Domestic Violence cases, this has resulted in me putting together a girls/women’s group which intend to:

• To prevent violence against the targeted group by challenging the attitudes and behaviours which foster them and having a systemic approach in highlighting potential victims via support from the social work teams, Hounslow domestic and sexual violence outreach services (16+ Service), Woman and girls’ network, and victim support services.
• To work in partnership with external service to come in a complete session in Art Therapy, Group work, mindfulness and Meditation, YOGA, and life coaching.
• To engage in fun and exciting opportunities to promote group cohesion by doing Henna nights and using a chance for the girls to come and get their nails done saving them money and using this as a carrot for initial engagement.

Allowing our targeted young people, a space to come and enjoy themselves by having a drop in that is for them which is accessible at least once a week alongside tailored one 2 one work.

The aims of the sessions will be to:

• Identify key elements of healthy and unhealthy relationships.
• Understand the importance of equality and respect.

Explore personal boundaries and consent.

• Increase self‐confidence and empathy for others.
• Develop awareness of where to seek or signpost support.

This has then allowed us to follow up with work with some of our male service users who can also be affected by some of the above, but in all face a whole different social challenge, whereby a lot have been subjected to being forced to work within the county lines system, with a number of service users wanting to remove themselves from this, but find it hard to explore other means of ‘employment’ and career aspirations, alongside breaking away from controlling circumstances. This can also be explored with our service users who partake within the gang culture and teenage youth crime who have and will continue to be supported with this. Some of the activities we would like for the group to engage within will be ones that promote team work and communication alongside building up their self‐esteem, we would also like to incorporate a lot of the fun element to allow for the group break away from some of their daily struggles back home, but to also be enlighten on how they could help and be helped to improve upon this.”

TESTIMONIAL ‐ WALTHAM FOREST COLLEGE

“Most of our SEN student do not get an opportunity to experience a variety of activities such as Residential areas like Stubbers. The benefit of attending Stubbers is for our student to work with their peers in an environment outside of college, by helping them learn how to communicate with each other while learning a new skill. Stubbers also helped by stretching and challenging each student on understanding their own capability, e.g. One of our student in the past did not realise that he could drive a 4×4, he understood the directions given to him. He later spoke about it to mum and she couldn’t believe it, how capable her son was.

Experiences outside the classroom helps with communication skills, English, maths and even builds their confidence. We have groups of the widest range of age and capability, and students with challenging behaviours. One of the merits of attending Stubbers it is focused and we can build a programme that is best suited for our students adventurer and our desired outcomes.

All student from our classes are from families with Low Income as they are funded by the local authority for course placement through their own Educational Health Care Plans (EHCP). Most of the students are receiving means tested benefits such as Personal Independence Payment (P.I.P) which would cover additional funding for support in daily activities due to long term illness and/or disabilities. Due to these circumstances, families cannot afford to contribute. All of our students enrolled onto our foundation course will have a registered disability, mental health need and serve health needs that would specify them as a vulnerable person. This financial support is direct to our students to aid them in supporting with their daily living.“

The Triple Fund
The Triple Fund provides access to additional support where funds are not available from existing sources, or where other sources of funding have been exhausted, and can be accessed for the following purposes:

1. Hardship Fund
Sometimes even small financial barriers can seriously derail the progress of an individual. Simple things like not having the funds available to travel to a mandated benefits appointment can lead to benefit sanctions, rent arrears and eviction. The Hardship Fund is a flexible fund for individuals or families experiencing crisis, destitution, or who are in immediate risk of homelessness. It can be the difference between being able to pay the rent and maintain a tenancy and being faced with eviction and homelessness.

2. Project Improvement Fund
This fund is for the benefit of residents within an established project. The transformative elements of supported care go beyond having a roof over your head and a bed to sleep in. The Project Improvement Fund is there to create a supportive environment, within which the residents can develop practical and social skills, including life skills. The Project Improvement Fund could contribute to gym equipment, the development of communal spaces, innovative social activities for multiple beneficiaries such as arts and cooking­ anything that could help rebuild confidence and develop new or improve existing skills.

3. Client Progression Fund
The Wallich has an ongoing commitment to creating opportunities for people. We recognise that training, education, and employment offer a sustainable route away from homelessness and provide the best opportunity to integrate into society. The Client Progression Fund is there to facilitate access to educational trips or courses; to provide seed funds for enterprise or to attain professional qualifications. It can be used less formally to support meaningful personally progressive activity.

Project Update
Since May 2019, when we received the funding from The Diversity Project there have been 135 successful applications across The Triple Fund totalling £25,946.

Applications to the fund have been received from a wide range of individuals and projects, demonstrating how the fund is becoming more widely recognised as an emergency funding resource across the organisation.

The grant so generously given by The Diversity Project Charity in April 2019 went towards supporting the work of the Transition Team at Treloar’s.

The Transition Team support the students at Treloar’s who are contending with the most complex physical disabilities and conditions such as learning difficulties, visual impairments, absence of verbal communication, medical and dietary issues, lack of social awareness, mental health problems and life-limiting conditions. Here is an indication of the complexity of our students’ needs:

• 94% of our students are wheelchair users;
• 80% have speech, language and communication challenges;
• 46% are non-verbal or require support from Communication equipment; and
• 20% have a life limiting condition.

The Transition Team’s work is to enable students to achieve qualifications, and gain the confidence and independence they need to move onto the next step in their lives – whether that’s continuing within the School Sixth Form, a residential placement, returning home to continue studying at a local college, or moving onto Treloar College.

Former student about the impact of Treloar’s and our Transition Team.
“Being at University has given me so many new skills that would not have been possible if I had not been at Treloar’s. I have opened so many new doors now I am doing a course I love and that is all thanks to the amazing people I have met throughout my life. I am learning how to direct in a theatrical sense and also independently help myself to live my life. Thank you for everything. Being at Treloar’s inspired me to be the person I have become, I am stronger now and more confident than when I first arrived. I am looking to get a job and being at University has stood me in good stead for this and my future career.”

We received the grant in June 2019. At the time we were awarded the grant we were going through some financial crisis and this money came as a blessing as it was unrestricted. It enable us to use it as leverage to obtain further funding to develop our services.

This year we witnessed an increase in the number of women we supported with the figure rising to 1500. As we all know the end of this financial year (March 2020) saw the world and the country going through unprecedented times. Presenting us with challenges that we never imagined had to face in our lifetimes. Coronavirus arrived, at the end of last year – 2019 – and by February we knew that somehow the world as we knew was about to change. The funding from the Diversity Project enabled us to react very quickly at the outset of COVID-19.

We were able to transfer most of our services and activities online. As mentioned above Coronavirus caught us all by surprise. We stopped face to face services the second week of March. We were planning for the worst from the end of February the team responded to the challenges and changing needs of our participants by developing new and unique services on line. We were able rouse this funding to finance some the technology and pay for the time of volunteers and staff to coach the women and connect BAME families to our services. It has been a challenging time for all of us. The most important thing for us was about responding to this crisis in a positive way, ensuring that our women and families felt safe and kept well.

We managed to adapt and recreate most of our services to online platforms. The first few weeks were extremely challenging as we all have to learn to live by communicating virtually. Loads of our women were completely unprepared and digitally illiterate. WCF as a whole work very hard to ensure that all participants interested in keeping in touch and wanted to take part in our services and activities had one to one coaching to enable them to use and understand digital platforms. Over the last 5 months we successfully delivered many support sessions and activities through zoom. We also have very active WhatsApp groups. We engaged our beneficiaries through our social media platforms like Instagram, Face book and twitter. By the end of the summer we were providing 30 weekly activities on line. Specially we were able to continue sessions with children under 5 and their families. Our families lack physical resources like IT, lPads, and technology in general. We were able to provide some of them with this items.

The feedback from the participants has been overwhelming positive. For the mothers and children during lockdown our activities provided them with connectivity, educational activities, emotional support and a source of information. In the words of a young girl from our after school club “Thank you Andrea, Kenzie and Shekh and everyone else without you guys we wouldn’t have anything to do during this awful time I’m sure everyone here appreciates what you’ve done for us.”. Hay at For the older women it helped with their isolation and loneliness, they learned new skills and feel empowered to use technology.

In the words of one older woman “This has been a life changing experience. I feel much more connected than before. I’m able to participate in activities and see my friends nearly every day. In the past I was not able to come to the centre very often because of my health. “

Invincible Me is at a very exciting point in its journey, as we are about to launch our first proprietary programme in late February 2020. We have five schools signed on for this cohort and are very excited to start working with them, and to assessing the impact our programme can have over the four terms during which we support them. During this time we will also continue to refine the programme based on feedback from the schools and the Invincible Me facilitation team, and hope to launch our second cohort in either summer or autumn term 2020.

Background:
Invincible Me’s first programme in 2017-1018 was a joint pilot with the UCL Institute of Education (IOE). The IOE had created a knowledge exchange programme around whole school wellbeing, which seemed like a good fit for what Invincible Me wanted to roll out. The programme facilitators worked with primary school staff rather than directly with children, with an end goal of affecting positive change in mental health and wellbeing for both children and teachers.

Within the first term in the 10 pilot schools, Invincible Me facilitators and CEO realised that there were a number of ways in which the programme could potentially be more effective. These included:

a) A more practical programme; schools to be given support to identify the issues in their particular school and make a measurable action plan to address these issues;
b) A clear framework, audit tools, and established baseline data from which to measure changes during and after the programme;
c) An emphasis on being strategic and sustainable; the programme should not be ‘just another intervention’ but help to shift mindsets and culture across the schools.

Following on from the joint pilot and in order to make the necessary improvements to our programme before running it again, Invincible Me spent much of 2018 and spring 2019:

• Refining our audit and evaluation tools for schools and putting these online for ease of use by schools and analysis of data by Invincible Me facilitators;
• Trialling these new tools in a small subset of primary schools in London; (con’t)
• Developing an initial set of evaluation materials including case studies, videos and testimonials to share with potential schools;
• Putting in place a GDPR compliant database to track the schools we have/ hope to work with, past and future funders, potential delivery partners and other Invincible Me supporters

The NSPCC Schools Service empowers children to speak out and stay safe from abuse and neglect, and prevent its devastating impact from damaging their lives. Interactive, memorable and child-friendly Schools Service assemblies are delivered to primary school children (aged 5 to 11) to help them understand what abuse is and why it’s wrong. We also help them to recognise who the trusted adults are that they can reach out to if they ever feel unsafe.

Two weeks after an assembly, our volunteers return to a school to deliver an interactive classroom-based workshop for children aged 9 to 11, where they discuss different forms of abuse in an age-appropriate way. Important messages are revisited and reinforced to help strengthen children’s understanding of abuse and their confidence to speak out against it.

In 2019/20, we visited over 7,000 primary schools across the UK and spoke to more than 1.6 million children about ways in which they could stay safe from harm, thanks to supporters like you.

The Diversity Project Charity has generously supported Hospice at Home. Through this project, launched in January 2019, our qualified palliative nursing staff go out to life-limited children’s homes and care for them, for a few hours a week, while their parents and carers have a much-needed break.

Hospice at Home has been invaluable for families who struggle to access Richard House. Factors such as the cost and availability of accessible transport, time, juggling work and other childcare, and the sheer difficulty of leaving the house with lots of medical equipment can make travelling to Richard House practically impossible for some of the children and families who most need our services. Hospice at Home means children with life-limiting health conditions do not miss out on palliative care and support because of their circumstances.

Hospice at Home is free of charge for our families. The majority live in areas with some of the highest levels of poverty in the UK, including Newham, Tower Hamlets and Hackney. The service is designed to fit in with families’ busy lives, so they can prioritise palliative care for their child without having to sacrifice in other areas.

We know from speaking to children and families that Hospice at Home has been making an incredible difference to their lives. Simple things that many of us take for granted, such as popping to the supermarket, seeing friends, or catching up on sleep, are some of the ways that parents have used their Hospice at Home hours each week. One couple use their time to take their other son to the park and play football with him, while his brother stays at home. Caring for a seriously ill child becomes a 24-hour role that many of our parents take on, and it can be incredibly isolating and stressful for them, as well as for siblings who often feel sidelined. Giving families a few hours a week to take a break helps improve their wellbeing, and allow them to recharge their batteries.

For the children themselves, Hospice at Home means they receive the care they need from a familiar face each week. The experience of receiving palliative care from the comfort of their own home has numerous demonstrable benefits for children; it increases their relaxation and comfort levels, helps with their social interactions, alleviates their symptoms, gives them access to sensory resources and games, and reduces feelings of isolation. We now have mobile tech units we can take to children at home, including technology such as interactive digital play mats, VR headsets, and sensory toys. These kinds of resources are specially designed, and not readily available to life-limited children.

Hospice at Home continues to adapt, particularly in light of the coronavirus pandemic. We regularly review safety measures and carry out risk assessments for each new family on the caseload. We are currently delivering the service to 35 children and their families, with a number on the waiting list to receive care pending additional funding.

This donation was to purchase medical equipment that is being used to help us deliver endoscopic surgery on the inner ear. By moving to this minimally invasive procedure it means that we can treat a large number of conditions affecting the inner ear which left untreated could lead to hearing loss, facial paralysis, and even brain infections. Thanks to this equipment we can undertake this surgery endoscopically meaning that there is no need for a large incision, meaning that this equipment not only helps us to effectively correct issues within the inner ear, it also means it has the long term benefit of not leaving our young patients with large scars. By utilising this equipment it also means that recovery times are quicker, delivering another benefit to the children undergoing this procedure.

One thing that has obviously limited the use of this equipment was the COVID pandemic when we had to scale back our elective surgery; we have though now fully resumed elective surgery but all areas of surgery remain challenging due to the additional precautions that we must take to keep our staff and patients safe whilst coronavirus continues to circulate within the community.