Service update

Due to the pandemic, we've had to minimise our daily services in order to meet & comply with safety regulations. Please read below for updates & further information.

  • Drop-in:  Our informal drop-in (stay & play) sessions have been cancelled until the foreseeable future. We apologise for any inconvenience caused. Our Thursday evening extended drop-in in which parents are required to stay has also been cancelled and we're using this time to extend our after-school provision instead.
 
  • Pre-school: Our pre-school provision is at full capacity. Any eligible families registered with us will be prioritised in order of housing need, and placed on a waiting list until a space becomes available (on a first come first serve basis). 
 
  •  After-school club: In order to comply with social distancing regulations,  our  after-school club has been limited to high priority registered families (those with a greater housing need). We are spacing out this provision over two afternoons per week - Tuesdays & Thursdays.
 
  • Donation giveaways: We are no longer hosting giveaway days due to social distancing. Instead, families are letting us know what they need and we handpick the items for them. Many thanks to everyone that continues to donate clothing, toys & homeware, they are going to very good homes!
Our wonderful volunteers - Ralph with his mother, Fred who is one of our trustees & Katie, a local school teacher.

Food parcels for our families

Since the start of the Covid-19 lock down, we experienced a  surge in families needing support with food.

With the help of funding from The London Community Foundation and our local Lidl, we were able to purchase plenty of fresh foods (fruit, veg, dairy) & cupboard essentials for our families in need. Our hope was that this would also relieve some of the pressure on our local food bank, who have experienced a record number of requests for support.

This remains an ongoing mission, and with the help of our fantastic volunteers, we continue to assist many of our families with weekly deliveries.

Creative fun

With the children stuck at home during lockdown & missing out on all the messy, creative fun they get to enjoy  at school & our after-school club, we decided to put together some craft  activity bags.

Each one included a full range of  supplies & kits for the children to engage their creativity!
Our Early Years Practitioner Andrulla with our Project Co-ordintor Beatrice, preparing craft kits.
Bags of creative goodies ready to be delivered!

YouTube 

With the centre being closed, we didn't want the children to lose their connection with their key workers, so our incredible childcare team worked from home to record lots of songs & story time videos that we shared with our families. We even did a couple of chapter books for our older children!

Click here to view our YouTube channel!

Support services

Due to the effects of lockdown, our families needed support more than ever, and over the last 4 months we've continued to provide our advice, advocacy, family therapy & therapeutic counselling services.

Whilst we were unable to do so in person due to health & safety regulations regarding Covid, we maintained appointments via telephone & email. 

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Our advice room,  where sessions with support workers are held.

Technology for families

Recently we were contacted by a start up organisation, Ready Tech Go, who's aim is to beat the digital divide and make technology accessible through the donations of phones & tablets.

Much of the homeschooling during lockdown relied heavily on the use of the internet & technology, however for many low income families this wasn't so simple. We found that quite a few of our families were having to share a phone for school work.

Ready Tech Go have kindly donated tablets to some of our families that needed hem the most. The children are now able to use them to catch up with their school work!