Fun at the seaside

Nearly 2,000 primary school children from all over the North East ventured to South Shields beach this morning to take part in the annual Children North East Sandcastle Challenge.

140 teams from 50 schools took up the Challenge, sadly a handful had to cancel at the last minute due to the deluge yesterday. This year;s theme was the Olympic Games and as in previous years I was amazed by the imagination and creativity of all the children who took part. Many schools sent teams of mixed age groups so that older children helped the younger ones. The youngest were from Year 1 and the eldest Year 6 (ages 6 to 11 years).

The children told us how they had learned about the Olympic Games in class then suggested designs and voted to select the one to build. Of course many children had recently seen the Olympic Torch.

The Sandcastle Challenge is a reminder of how Children North East started in 1891 by taking poor children from Newcastle on a day trip to the seaside for the health benefits of fresh air and sunshine. Thanks to the research of Dr. Hazel Jones-Lee, one of our trustees we now realise this was no one off event but a weekly occurrence from March to October every year until well into the 1930s. For example in 1895 7,814 children went in 23 (free) weekly trips! They plodged in the sea, played on the beach and I expect they built sandcastles too. We know from a contemporary account that they were fed 'a large meat sandwich and tea for lunch and 'the largest buns I ever saw' and mugs of tea for tea!

Today the 5 winning teams and their designs were (in no particular order):

Hareside Primary School - 'Swimmers'
Brunton First School - 'London 2012 Rings'
Roseberry Primary School - 'Torch'
Ryhope Infant School - 'Route of the Torch'
St William's RCVA Primary School - 'Zeus'

Congratulations to each winning team who all receive a prize of £200 courtesy of GB Building Solutions.

To view the photos taken on the day please visit our facebook page www.facebook.com/ChildrenNorthEast

Hope in Parliament

Sharon Hodgson MP made a commitment at our conference last November to organise a reception at the House of Commons for young people to tell MPs about their experience on poverty. So it was yesterday we took 10 young people and our exhibition of children's photographs of poverty to London. About 50 people came – Lords, MPs from the north east and elsewhere including Ed Balls and Steven Twigg as well as other important people.

The young people with Ed Balls

The young people, the youngest just 10, were amazing, completely unphased by the surroundings or guests. I have seen their drama, 'Hope's Diary' developed with Newcastle Live Theatre, 6 times and get more out of it each time. The lines delivered in the school scene, 'don't worry Hope, we'll get you tomorrow' and the aside in the dinner queue 'I know she's on free meals but she eats so much she's taking the Mick' when the audience knows this is the only meal Hope will have that day – they really hit home.

I was delighted to tell the audience that Children North East and the North East Child Poverty Commission will be developing a 'poverty proofing toolkit' for schools this summer to pilot in the autumn term. The idea being to challenge and support schools to change often unconscious practices that make it more difficult for poorer, disadvantaged children to get the best out of and achieve their potential at school. We already have a lot of interest from some schools.

This was on the day when The Guardian newspaper reported their survey in which teachers said they notice more and more children unable to concentrate in class because they are hungry. As more families struggle to make ends meet and schools close breakfast clubs because of cost, teachers are buying food for some children themselves and Greggs has seen a 60% increase in requests from schools for their free breakfast clubs.

Tyne Tees television followed the young people to Parliament – Sharon Hodgson said it was 'like a modern day Jarrow Crusade' for broadcast at 6 pm on Friday 22^nd June. You can read what MPs and others had to say about it on Twitter: #hopeinparliament or watch the Tyne Tees TV report about the trip on You Tube

Celebrating and thanking our volunteers

Last night I attended our celebration to thank all our volunteers for the wonderful work they do for the beneficiaries of Children North East and their fantastic commitment. It was a great pleasure to welcome Judie McCourt from The People's Postcode Lottery who gave certificates to the volunteers in recognition of the huge numbers of hours they give. The People's Postcode Lottery have given over £430,000 to Children North East over a great many years and we are extremely grateful to the players of The People's Postcode Lottery who make such generosity possible.

We currently have over 100 volunteers, this is many more people than we employ. For over 30 years we have been recruiting, training and supporting volunteers to befriend parents and young people in need. Some volunteers have gone on to professional training courses and become paid staff for Children North East.

Almost all the volunteers last night event were young people from our 3 Youth Link projects in Sedgefield, Tynedale and Blyth. 'Youth Link' projects recruit young people (often students but increasingly they stay on as volunteers once they start work) to mentor other young people in some kind of need. For example young people who have low self-esteem, very little confidence, poor emotional well-being, falling out with their parents; lacking friends or having difficulty joining sports activities or social clubs because of conditions like ME and autism. The real strength of Youth Link is that it is much easier for young people to relate to someone close to their own age. These projects are all  about ‘having someone to talk to’ and are highly valued by the young people and families who use them.

We train all our volunteers and they are supported by staff to visit young people referred by professional agencies and help them achieve their goals. The training for our Youth Link volunteers is a course we have developed that is accredited through the Open College Network – the course is worth having as well as the experience of learning about other young people's lives and of helping them. Whether the volunteer pursues a career in the helping professions or not the experience is a valuable addition to their CV.

Volunteers save the public sector money. For example Youth Link volunteers have been commissioned to support young people with learning difficulties and other special educational needs to learn how to use public transport to get to school or college instead of taxis paid for by the local Council.  We are currently setting up two new Youth Link Projects in different parts of Newcastle upon Tyne, I believe we will be recruiting more and more volunteers.

The young people received certificates in recognition of 100 hours and 200 hours volunteer work. This is the number of hours spent with the young people or being part of a steering group to develop the services. It takes about a year to build up 100 hours. (At the suggestion of volunteers, they are awarded a hoodie when they complete 50 hours volunteering).

There was also a new special award to remember two fabulous ladies who collected over £1m for charities and were terrific supporters of Children North East. Olive and Margaret, known to thousands of party-goers in Newcastle as ‘the ladies in the Bigg Market’ were a regular sight on Saturday night touring the clubs and bars dressed as cowgirls with their collecting buckets. In 2010 Noel Edmunds honoured them with a trip to America to meet their heroine Dolly Parton on his Noel’s Christmas Presents show. Sadly Olive passed away last December but we will remember her's and Margaret’s extraordinary commitment as an inspiration to new generations of volunteers. This special award was for one volunteer who has made an outstanding contribution.

Going Hungry - Free school meals

Going Hungry, Young people’s experiences of Free School Meals is a report this week by the British Youth Council and Child Poverty Action Group. It found that many students who should receive free meals are not given enough credit to cover a full meal, while some children living in poverty are not eligible for free school meals because of the complex system governing eligibility.

A survey of 1,026 young people and focus groups with young people from Calcot, Gateshead, Redbridge and North East Lincolnshire found that overwhelmingly, young people feel that all children from low-income families should receive free school meals.

Around 65 per cent agreed with the statement that “students from low income families” should receive the allowance compared to 11 per cent who said “students from out-of-work families”.

Currently pupils receive free school meals if their parents receive income support; income-based jobseeker’s allowance; income-related employment and support allowance; support under the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999;  the guaranteed element of state pension credit, or child tax credit if their annual income does not exceed £16,190.

Source: Children and Young People Now magazine

More misery for poorer families

Government plans to localise the help with council tax whilst cutting funding for it by 10% leave local councils with a tough challenge to design replacement schemes, according to a new report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Plans are to abolish Council Tax Benefit from April 2013 and let local authorities in England, and the Scottish and Welsh governments, set up their own schemes.

Some of the key findings-

• ‘Having schemes that vary across the country will reduce transparency and increase bureaucracy.’
• ‘The cash funding cut will be greatest in more deprived areas, where spending on Council Tax Benefit is currently highest.’
• ‘the requirement to protect pensioners in England will imply a 19% cut in support for working-age claimants, on average.‘
• ‘Cutting support for council tax and localising it are two distinct policy choices: either could have been done without the other. Whether you think that cutting council tax support for low-income families is the best way to reduce government borrowing by £500 million will depend on your views about how much redistribution the state ought to do. But the advantages of localisation seem to be outweighed by the disadvantages, particularly as it has the potential to undermine many of the positive impacts of Universal Credit.’

Source: Social Welfare Training Benefits Newsletter, June 2012

Sod calm, get angry

'Keep calm and carry on' was the commercial theme of the Jubilee referring to the Queen's grace and fortitude and a glance back to Britain in adversity during the second world war. I was struck that Prince Charles in his short speech after the concert on Monday evening referred to the difficult times that so many people in the UK are experiencing. The Archbishop of Canterbury in his sermon at the service of Thanksgiving on Tuesday morning contrasted the collective happiness and sense of safety felt in the Jubilee events with "... the traps of ludicrous financial greed, of environmental recklessness, of collective fear of strangers and collective contempt for the unsuccessful and marginal" which are the norm. And the Bishop of London published a pamphlet in which he advises us to use the Jubilee to consider "How fair is our society? How much poverty and inequality is there? How much consideration are we giving to the well-being of future generations? What care are we taking of our shared environment? – these are questions we should not shirk." The UK is a far more unequal society than we were 60 years ago and life is set to worsen for the poorest.

Back in March the Institute of Fiscal Studies said that so far we have seen only 12% of all the cuts planned to welfare benefits. From October 2013 most in and out of work benefits will be replaced by the Universal Credit which is supposed to 'simplify welfare benefits and make work pay'. Families will receive the same benefit both in and out or work but it will taper off as they earn more. This is to be welcomed if it ends having to wait up to 6 weeks between making a claim and receiving a payment as in the current system which results in people running up debts when their job ends. However assessment for Universal Credit will be of family rather than individual income, only one person will be able to claim for the whole family. Imagine what that might mean for women forced to rely on whatever their man chooses to give her from 'his' money. The Credit will be paid monthly instead of fortnightly making it much harder for many families to budget.

People receiving Universal Credit while in work will be required to work a minimum of 24 hours a week (already increased from 16 hours) per family; and they will be required to increase their hours or get a better job in order to remove reliance on Universal Credit. They will be expected to travel up to 90 minutes to work instead of the existing 60 minutes. Remember too that support for child care has dropped from 80% to 70% of the cost of child care while you go to work.

Universal Credit will be capped, the DWP estimate the cap will be £500 a week (including other income such as Child Benefit) for couples and £350 a week for single people. The government's own Impact Assessment estimates 67,000 households will experience a reduction from their current level of income from benefits in the first year; 69% of which have 3 or more children. Once your assessment for Universal Credit has been made your entitlement will remain the same unless your total income drops more than £2,500 a year. Responsibility for Community Care grants and Crisis Loans (currently the last safety net for families with no money) is to be transferred to Councils, whether you get one or not is much more likely to depend on where you live.

Keep calm and carry on? I don't think so, time to get angry.

BAD - Blog Action Day on Volunteers

It's good to be part of this BAD - Blog Action Day organised by VONNE (Voluntary Organisations Network North East) to highlight the important role that volunteers play in society.

Children North East currently has 96 volunteers, and the number is rising all the time. This is many more people than we employ. For over 30 years we have been recruiting, training and supporting volunteers to befriend parents and young people in need. Some volunteers have gone on to professional training courses and become paid staff for Children North East.

Our 'Youth Link' projects recruit young people (often students) to mentor other young people in some kind of need. For example young people falling out with their parents; on the edge of anti-social behaviour; lacking friends or having difficulty joining sports activities or social clubs because of conditions like ME and autism. The real strength of Youth Link is that it is much easier for young people to relate to someone close to their own age. These projects are highly valued by the young people and families who use them.

Volunteers save the public sector money. For example Youth Link volunteers have been commissioned to support young people with learning difficulties and other special educational needs to learn how to use public transport to get to school or college instead of taxis paid for by the local Council.

The training we offer our Youth Link volunteers is accredited so that they get a recognised qualification as well as learning about other young people's lives and experience of helping them. Whether the volunteer pursues a career in the helping professions or not the experience is a valuable addition to their CV.

Children North East is currently recruiting young people to two new Youth Link projects both in Newcastle. If you are interested please visit our website: www.children-ne.org.uk/volunteering