My Home between the Daisies

Aim

To provide a stimulating and inclusive winter play scheme for children who live with illness, disadvantage, poverty and mental illness.

Because of the pandemic situation, our relationship with children has taken a different angle. We hold many more discussions, surveys and consultations. The objectives of these are to determine the need for services by realising how different families are holding up, and what the home situation is like for children in the community. Over 35% of the 300 children who took part in these census, have shared tougher and more challenging home situations. In one extreme case, Rachel shared that her mother's BPD has accelerated since the lockdown when she couldn't handle the tension of the kids at home. New projects have been introduced to respond to these needs, and we are now looking forward to our newest one - My Home Between the Daisies. This was rated the most popular project on our census, following suggestions for day trips and Sunday Club. This will be a week long play scheme to take place during winter holidays. The idea is to keep safe those children whose homes are not the best place for them to be. With school closed, it is derogatory for them to spend too many hours at home, as this has proven to increase tensions, and deteriorate emotional instability. We already have data from our census, but will ask local school heads to invite children who are experiencing unhealthy home situations. 100 children, who have shared that their house is not a home, will spend a week in a safe, fun, and friendly environment and will enjoy activities, crafts, games and performance. More importantly, they will hear kind words, greetings, compliments and lots of laughter, which will encourage good moods, social engagements allowing children who are locked up in themselves, to emerge to the world of colourful daisies!  

This project successfully funded on 29th May 2022