Housing and Support for Young Mums and Mums to Be

ISSUE 13October 20081

Housing and support for young mums and mums to be

Newsletter

ISSUE 13

October 2008

Here’s our Newsletter to update you all on our progress and future aims!

ISSUE 13October 20081

Fleming Gardens is a voluntary sector supported housing project whose aim is to give young women a chance to have their own tenancy along with the extra support they need to live independently with their child/ren. Our outreach service supports young mums who are either currently looking for their own tenancy or are already in their own tenancy and need support to maintain it.

National Play Day…

On the 6th August the National Play Day went ahead and the weather was great, it stayed dry all day! The event went well and Fleming Gardens managed to raise £33.60. Flanderwell TARA who organised car washing sessions at Fleming Gardens have contacted us to thank us for our help and support. Maltby Police Community Support Officers who organised the event in conjunction with young people in the local area were pleased with attendance and the event was enjoyed by all!

The Staying Safe Commitment Scheme…

The SSCB has joined forces with the NSPCC to provide a quality improvement scheme to voluntary and community sector organisations that deliver services or activities to children and young people. This allows organisations to assess their safeguarding policies and procedures against a national set of standards and receive a certificate of recognition from the NSPCC and SSCB. Seven voluntary and community organisations including The Sheffield YWCA have joined the scheme for this year’s pilot. Fleming Gardens has made huge changes to its Child Protection Policies and Procedures in line with Rotherham Social Care, and Rotherham Voluntary Sector Partnership. The evidence will be submitted this month and we anticipate that the procedures will meet the required standards. A copy of the Policies and Procedures will be available on request to professionals. If you would like a please contact Sue Phillips on 01709 703471.

Rotherham Mind Workshops…

Rachel and Ellen from Rotherham Mind approached Fleming Gardens offering to deliver a series of workshops around Emotional Wellbeing for Young Women. They consulted with staff and residents about what issues they felt were the most pressing. They then designed and delivered the following four workshops to young women.

• Self esteem and confidence
• Bereavement and loss
• Domestic violence
• Taking care of yourself

The workshops were well attended and received positive feedback from the young women. Rachel and Ellen are now looking into whether the programme can be delivered on a regular basis. Fleming Gardens would like to thank Rachel and Ellen for their time and effort.

New Member of Staff…

I would like to introduce myself to everyone. I’m Pam Eaton; I started working with the Fleming Gardens Project on 2nd September as the Administrative Assistant. I’m in a part time role, four days a week. I have various duties (I’m kept busy) including answering the telephone and meeting visitors when they arrive at Fleming Gardens, so it could be me you speak to first.

It’s great to be part of this friendly team.

Fleming Gardens’

NEET figures…

Fleming Gardens has been working hard to encourage its young women to return to education, employment and training. This year a large percentage of residents have had this implemented into their support plan and with our support have returned to education and received support in identifying appropriate childcare.

Fleming Gardens is currently supporting 22 young women. Of the 22 service users, 32% are claiming benefits and are not currenlty wanting to returm to education or employment. However we must be mindful that 18% of these are either pregnant or have given birth in the last three months. 41% are currently in education, including college, school or open college, or studying for a quilification at home. 23% of residents have been enroled with the Rowan Centre to complete the Parents for Prospects course which is due to begin in October 2008. 4% of the young women are currently in employment.

Over the last four years an increasing number of Fleming Gardens residents have returned to education, employment and training. We are hoping to maintain the increase as we introduce more training programmes within the project, and promote our Getting Connected Programme to those young women who are pregnant or who have recently given birth and are not yet ready to leave their child.

YWCA European Representatives Meeting…

On the 14th October 2008 Dee Barron one of the Project Workers at Fleming Gardens will be flying out to Arhus in Denmark to attend the YWCA European Representatives Meeting. The ERM will last four days and will include workshops on the plight of Migrant Women. Dee will be part of a team of delegates representing YWCA of Great Britain.

Sheffield YWCA is an independent satellite of the YWCA but remains affiliated and is represented on the board of YWCA GB by its Chief Executive.

Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) was founded in England in 1855 by Miss Emma Robarts and The Hon Mrs Arthur Kinnaird. Miss Robarts started organising groups for young women who were coming toLondon for the first time. Mrs Kinnaird opened a hostel in Upper Charlotte Street, London for Florence Nightingale's nurses, en route to and from the Crimea. In 1859 ladies’ meetings began in Edinburgh and Kelso that later formed the first branches of the YWCA in Scotland. The work of the YWCA continued to spread throughout the country from the north of Scotland to the south of England. Local clubs drew up monthly programmes which typically included bible classes, sewing, educational classes and social gatherings. From the beginning the emphasis was on all-round development in mind, body and spirit. In 1894, the YWCAs of Great Britain, USA, Norway and Sweden founded the World YWCA.

Today the World YWCA has members in over 100 countries worldwide including YWCA GB.A movement of over 20 million women involved in YWCA’s in countries as far apart as Canada and Nepal. It continues to be a membership movement with a focus on developing opportunities for young women. Every 4 years members have the opportunity to meet together at World Council to share experiences and agree priorities.

Founded by Christian women, the YWCA’s roots lie equally in feminism and in faith. Today the YWCA GB respects its heritage but embraces the multicultural society in which we live. The values which underpin the work are shared by people of different faiths, cultural backgrounds and philosophies.

The YWCA of Great Britain is an umbrella organisation with representatives from YWCA England and Wales, YWCA Scotland and the Independent YWCA’s working together to ensure YWCA GB is represented at International Events. The governing body of YWCA of Great Britain is called British Council.YWCA GB has representatives sitting on both the European Committee and the World Board.

Extensive, valuable work is carried out by the YWCA with and for young women throughout Great Britain:

YWCA England and Wales offers more than 140 programmes to girls and young women aged 11 to 30 across England and Wales. From the safety of their 13 women-only centres they offer support, information and the opportunity to learn new things. They help them to challenge violence or abuse and improve their health and self-esteem. YWCA England and Wales is committed to raising the social and political profile of young women's issues and experiences.
Their policy, research and campaigns team provides a voice for young women facing discrimination and disadvantage.

YWCA Scotlanddelivers a range of services for girls and women through their local centres in Livingston, Kirkcaldy, Coupar Angus, Dundee, Moray, and two Edinburgh Centres, Roundabout and Lochend. The Volunteering Project is based in their Central Office in Edinburgh. They provide girls’ and women’s groups, educational, personal and leadership development and a range of opportunities to develop skills and experience in the arts, events organisation and campaigning. They work in partnership with a range of organisations in the public, private and voluntary sector to deliver their services to mainly marginalised communities.Nationally, the YWCA Scotland is working to establish itself as a key contributor to policy debate and to provide a platform for young women to have their voices heard. They take a leading position on the issues affecting young women in Scotland today ensuring that the services they provide are responsive to genuine need. Young women are supported to participate at all levels of their decision-making process including serving on local advisory committees at Board level and representing YWCA of G.B. at European Representatives meetings. Externally, young women have the opportunity to represent YWCA Scotland on Scottish Youth Parliament and U.K. Youth Parliament and the European Women’s Lobby.

Independent YWCA’s - early in YWCA’s history, individual projects and hostels throughout the UK registered as separate charities, but with the YWCA name. As a result, there are still a number of separately registered and autonomous YWCAs in England – Sheffield, Kendal, Newcastle Upon Tyne and Sunderland. These YWCAs, are managed separately from YWCA and individually employ their own staff and have full financial and operational responsibility for the affairs of their own YWCA.
Of these Independent YWCA’s Sheffield YWCA is the most active running 5 projects, Peile House, Peile Court, Walkley Foxhill, Green Gables and Fleming Gardens which together offer accommodation to 54 young women throughout South Yorkshire and support a further 15 in the community, making a total of 69 young women being supported by Sheffield YWCA at any one time.

Dee is very excited about the forth coming trip and will be feeding back and sharing relevant information to all the Independent YWCA’s. She feels it is fantastic that Sheffield YWCA can participation in the wider organisation at both a national and international level. Being part of the YWCA GB gives Sheffield YWCA a voice to support YWCA campaigns which are trying to improve many of the issues which face our service users on a daily basis, such as :

• ‘More than One Rung’ – a campaign to get young women the skills to work their way of the bottom rung off the career ladder,
• ‘Respect Young Mums’ - a campaign calling for young mums to be treated equally,
• ‘Election’ – a campaign encouraging young women to get their opinions heard and vote.
• ‘More Safer Places to Go’ – a campaign for more young women to be able to attend women-only centres.
• ‘104 Pairs of Shoes’ an exhibition highlighting the issues of violence against women.
• Body Imagine Campaign

If you would like more information on the work the YWCA please visit the following websites:

ISSUE 11March 20081

ISO 9001 Accreditation…

ISO 9001 is the internationally recognised standard for an organisation’s internal Quality Management. The term ‘quality’ refers to all those features of a product or service, which are required by the customer. An organisation’s ‘Quality Management’ refers to an organisation’s actions to ensure that its products or services satisfy its customers’ quality requirements and complies with any regulations applicable to those products or services.

Sheffield YWCA has achieved the ISO 9001 quality standard. This enables us to use the ‘Quality Standard’ logo on all our stationary and paperwork in recognition of the accreditation.

Many thanks to Janine Egan, Project Manager at Green Gables for completing all the necessary work, at her project, to attain this recognised standard. Janine is now in the process of assisting other projects to gain the ISO 9001 certificate.

Swimming Sessions…

Thank you to Rotherham Borough Council for the donation of free swimming passes to their local facilities. Weekly swimming sessions were arranged with the young women and a project worker accompanied them. The swimming sessions enables our young women to achieve many of their goals including

Increasing physical activity

Providing stimulation for their Child

Strengthening bonding and Attachment

Increasing self-esteem and Confidence.

Sheffield YWCA staff Conference…

The Sheffield YWCA held its biannual Conference at the Hilton Hotel Sheffield; all five of our projects attended.

Website

Diane from Green Gables Project Doncaster gave a practical demonstration on how Sheffield YWCA will be linked to the worldwide web when our new website is up and running. Staff almost got themselves in a tangle throwing a ball of wool between them to illustrate each link the website will have!!!

Diane has carefully planned the design of the website to ensure Sheffield YWCA has appropriate links to partner agencies. The website will also enable referring agencies to download project brochures, newsletters and referral forms. We will notify you when the website is up and running.

Project Presentations

All projects were asked to provide a presentation on the unique work their individual projects provide. Staff worked extremely hard to produce a presentation with excellent results.

Each presentation was very innovative using included videos, power point, music, drama to display their work.

Thank you for taking the time to read our Newsletter. If you know of anyone that would benefit from receiving our Newsletter please telephone Fleming Gardens on 01709 703471. We will be happy to send you one and add your company to our mailing list!

ISSUE 11March 20081