Junior Club: a space to breathe

Emily* has been attending Junior Club for three years. She has a difficult home life: her mother and brother live with severe mental ill-health and her father is often away. She is aware of these difficulties but sometimes finds it hard to make sense of them. At Junior Club, Emily makes new friends and has the chance to talk to the regular staff who she now knows and trusts.

Despite her challenging home life, Emily is happy and enthusiastic to try new activities, which highlights what a good job her mother is doing, despite her mental ill-health. Junior Club provides Emily with a couple of extra hours to be carefree and to have fun.

Art-tastic

Last term we welcomed Katie, a new volunteer who has been leading our art activities. She has been wonderful and keeps the children interested with creative and hands-on projects, which they love.

New Studios

The children have been very excited with the new music studios at RPT. Studio 1 has been full of budding new artists singing and recording, while Studio 2 has been used to facilitate our Man Cave and Boy Cave mental wellbeing sessions. Last term one little boy who worked with a Man Cave Link Worker opened up about his feelings for the first time; this allowed him discuss how feels about getting into trouble and being excluded from activities as a result. Although only a start to the long journey, this was a major breakthrough.

Christmas Party

We had two amazing days of Christmas parties with special guests Sharky & George providing lots of fun and games. We welcomed about 70 children each day for food, games and an afternoon full of smiles.