SPOTLIGHT INTERVIEW
West London Zone

  • How are you helping young people in London?

We help children and young people build the relationships and skills they need to get on track Socially, Emotionally and Academically. We call this creating a SEA change.

We believe that by targeting these key areas of development we can empower children to fulfil their potential.

We work in West London – an area of deep inequality where 1 in 5 children and young people aren’t getting the support they need to thrive. Our research shows that there are 12,000 children and young people currently living in our community that need additional support.

  • Share with our members something positive about your organisation’s achievement or service.

During the COVID-19 lockdowns we adapted quickly to provide online support to children and young people. In the first lockdown, between 23 March – 17 July, we provided on average 3 Link Worker interactions per child per week. We also delivered remote support, working really closely with our partners to adapt to this way of delivering.

Now that we are able to provide face to face support, we are extending it for those who would normally be finishing their two-year programme in July to provide experiences and opportunities until the end of August.

Our aim is to offer children the opportunity to participate in sport, drama, music, art and crafts and a range of trips and visits – as well as accessing some additional support from where needed.

These activities will support them with much needed social interaction with their peers, to promote positive emotional wellbeing and have the chance to take part in some fun-filled activities after a very challenging year.

We raised £21,135 this month to go towards funding these activities throughThe Childhood Trust’s Champions for Children campaign!

  •  What can other network members learn from you or find out more about through you?

We have a funding model that sees each child supported by their local council, central government, their school and philanthropy. This means we are not reliant on one source of funding alone and can provide more support with these parties together than any one of them on their own.

We work to ensure that every child gets on track socially, emotionally and academically – and we have designed our funding model in a way to help us deliver this. Our commissioners pay us in instalments over the course of a child’s two-year programme, when we provide evidence of their participation in the programme and their progress at the end.

With payment explicitly tied to each individual, we are driven to achieve for every single child on our programme.

Our funding model means we work really collaboratively with our funders and partners – we have learnt a lot about how to do this effectively over the years. You can find more about our insights on this in our most recent Impact Report.

  • What would most help you achieve your goals?

We are continuing to be purposeful and strategic with our aims for growth so that we can reach more of the 12,000 children in our Zone that could benefit from our support. We are growing so we can be truly ‘deep’ in our place – supporting children across the community and working together to impact a generation of young people in West London. We’ve grown quickly, and aim to support 3,000 children and young people a year by 2025.

We have a big ambition – and we are focused on one place. By working with local organisations and people, we think it is possible to enable all children in our community to have access to the support they need to thrive in adulthood.

  • Why did you join 4in10? What do you enjoy about being part of the 4in10 network?

4in10 is a really important network, and we believe it’s important to constantly share our insights and learn from other organisations. We really enjoy receiving 4in10’s newsletter filled with details on events and opportunities for organisations. 4in10 do a brilliant job of bringing together organisations to unite to tackle inequality in London.