North Kensington is a tale of 2 cities, in 1 borough. Our school sits right on the very boundary of poverty and prosperity. We developed a separate charity to support our children and families outside of the school's main remit of education, as a way of being able to meet the rising tide of extreme need in our community.
Our schools trust charity has developed several key partnerships in the last two years. The reason we have done this is because the need within our families has grown exponentially post lockdown. Previously the number of families on free school meals was 35% and today that number exceeds 50%. Our school charity exists to support children and families beyond the classroom and previously that was mostly support for school trips, contribution to school uniforms and ad hoc support to struggling families.
Support for Families
We now need a family support fund to help our most vulnerable families to stabilise their home lives, by removing both practical barriers and by providing emotional support. Parents and carers need help with housing, health, benefits, employment and crisis support.
Support for Children
Children need support to self-regulate in our "nurture room" during the school day so that they can leave behind negative feelings like anxiety or anger and return to a place where they are able to learn again with their peers. We also need funding to offer a vibrant programme of after school provision, but at no cost so that it's completely inclusive. Most schools are falling into financial deficit this year and cannot afford the basics, let alone additional, non-statutory support. So we are fundraising through our school charity which has no overheads and no salaries; every penny raised will directly benefit our families.
Trauma-informed Approach
We are one of the five primary schools identified by the borough as most affected by Grenfell in terms of our school population. As such our entire team have had outstanding levels of training in understanding trauma and its impact on children and families. We worked closely with Lucy Easthope who is a disaster recovery specialist and has worked all over the world supporting communities after disasters in their recovery, ranging from Hillsborough to Christchurch in New Zealand. She told us that the three pillars of the community where trauma support is held most are: churches (or mosques, or temples) doctors (and other health professionals), and schools, as the most frontline and trusted entities in people’s lives. Through her training we understood that lockdown and the losses experienced within that will have triggered the previous loss and trauma brought about by Grenfell.
Mental Health and Wellbeing
We have noticed that many of our families and some parents in particular have much higher levels of anxiety these days, they integrate less with others, and even now some continue to occupy quite an isolated world. Many children and parents who we have referred for therapeutic support have not yet received that and as such are still quite fragile. We have also families living in extreme poverty and overcrowding which affects their mental health and wellbeing.
Refugee Families
There is a very transient population in North Kensington as a whole and we have certainly observed this within our parents. Especially with recently arrived communities and families they can feel hugely excluded or out of the loop when it comes to networks and support available. They simply are not aware of the various schemes, grants, training opportunities that are available, many in the local area. Wherever we can successfully refer into an existing project or service we will aim to do that. We can also plug in language and accessibility support as needed. We have welcomed lots of refugee families and still have many Ukrainian families who are looking for training opportunities. We want to have the the proper resources to understand exactly what they want to do and how best we can support them during what is still a very traumatic time in their life.
Trust
The school is uniquely placed to have an outstanding level of trust with parents. We see them every day and as such we have an exceptional understanding of their lives and how changing circumstances might impact them. The reason this project campaign has come about is because parents are presenting at the school in need of so much support and schools are so stretched now that there simply is not the available resource to meet demand. Any donation no matter what size will be so greatly appreciated and will be put to immediate and effective use with our families.