Launched in late 2018, Estate of Mine sees a number of stakeholders working together in one place – in this case, Stockwell and Kennington – to create longer term projects that improve the lives of young people, their families and the wider community. This is achieved by working with young people, their families and the wider community to create positive activities, safe places for them to connect and opportunities for them to develop skills and knowledge. Partners, including the Battersea Power Station Foundation, the Mayor’s Young Londoners’ Fund and Optivo Housing, have committed resources, alongside the Hyde Charitable Trust, to fund projects for the next three years.
Through our Estate of Mine programme we are able to build relationships and get to know the families that live in our homes in a holistic way. This means we can refer them to Hyde Foundation’s support services, including money and debt, benefit advice, employment and training and grants, when required. Here are some of the projects we fund.
Henry Fawcett school in Kennington
Community Connections:
The Successful Places team have been instrumental in our school being able to build a strong network of local organisations working in partnership to support our families. Since working with the team, we have been better able to signpost families to local organisations and have developed sustainable partnerships with organisations such as Active Communities Network (providing weekly girls mentoring sessions as part of a transition project) and Young People Matter (providing affordable holiday play-scheme offer from our site). The team are always able to facilitate introductions and suggest partnerships when we need support.
Funding Opportunities:
We have been able to access funding from the Successful Places team to help up provide bespoke support to our school community in a way that is responsive to their needs. This summer, we will be open once a week to supply the local community with food parcels and essential items, thanks to a recently awarded grant. The team have also been supportive in accessing wider funding opportunities in partner organisations, or offers of practical support, such as from EQUANS (previously Engie UK) who recently constructed a ‘breakfast stop’ in our playground so that we could serve hot bagels to pupils as they arrive at school.
Family Support:
As a school with high levels of social and economic disadvantage, we have been grateful for the support of the Successful Tenancies team who have accepted referrals from us. This work has helped us to address issues that were proving barriers to education, and have included a grant to support a single parent restart her small business, emergency vouchers for families on the poverty line, and access to benefits and mental health support.
Building positive sibling relationships
Joshua* is full of energy and loves football and computer games. He enjoys hanging out with friends and is happy to help set up the sessions for junior club in Stockwell. He has recently started a new school and is in year 7. He and his older sister, who also attends junior club, recently moved to London from overseas.
From his one on one session it became clear that Joshua is doing well at his studies and has made new friends at school. He has developed good relationships with the other young people at junior club and has recently helped with volunteering. During feedback sessions he contributes ideas of things he’d like to do and is keen to get involved in more sports.
Joshua and his sister often appear to have trouble getting along with each other. They both have strong personalities which can clash. During one session they got into a fight after Joshua’s sister embarrassed him in front of other people.
Joshua is working hard with the help of session leaders on improving the way he deals with his feelings and coming up with better reactions when he gets frustrated with his sister.
Developing leadership skills
Chantelle* became involved after speaking with Girlhood Active outreach workers. She was interested in the activities and was keen to get involved.
Throughout last summer Chantelle attended the youth club sessions, encouraging her friends to come along and help her to spread the word about what was on offer. It was noticed that she was a confident young woman who welcomed opportunities to develop her natural leadership skills. She was given the opportunity to attend a Mercedes-Benz employment workshop to learn about the career paths that are available. This was followed by an invitation to a youth violence conference which looked at ways that youth crime could be reduced. Chantelle represented herself and her peers in a positive light, was confident to give her opinion and really seemed to embrace the opportunity to speak on topics that affect her and her community.
She threw herself wholeheartedly into a level 1 NCFE Team Building course where she and her peers were able to develop their communication and presentation skills and come up with effective ways to work with each other. After successfully completing the course she received an accreditation. This, combined with her qualifications, helped to secure Chantelle a degree place at a university outside of London to study International Relations and Psychology.
*Names changed
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