DreamMaker

Here are some of the real life stories from the Summer edition of DreamMaker.

A Great Start in life for young musicians

Great Start Taita is a Barnardos community-led initiative. The Hub, which runs from Great Start House, has been growing and thriving in Taita, Lower Hutt, since October 2007.

Great Start, together with local families and organisations, facilitates and supports collaboration and connections throughout the Taita community.

Recently, the children of the Taita Violins Group had the honour of performing at the Beehive, after Hon. Chris Finlayson, New Zealand’s Attorney General and the Minster for Arts, Culture and Heritage, visited Great Start House to watch their Suzuki violin group play.

Mr Finlayson was really impressed with the young violinists’ musical talents, and stayed for afternoon tea with their teacher, Alison Eldredge. Afterwards, he invited the group to come to the Beehive to have lunch with him and play for his fellow politicians.

“The kids loved going up 20 floors in the lifts at the Beehive; it was really exciting,” says Alison. “We had a nice lunch, and then performed in the grand hall, a beautiful room in the heart of the Beehive. The children had a great time, and gave a brilliant performance for their proud mums, dads and siblings – and a heap of politicians!”

The group was established two years ago by Alison, a Suzuki violin teacher who has taught around the world. Alison was keen to do something voluntary in the low socio-economic Taita area, so she approached Karen at Great Start with her idea. “When I went to see Karen to talk about teaching violin to the children it brought a tear to her eye, so I knew we were onto something good!” recalls Alison.

The Suzuki principle is based on the idea that all children can learn music just as they learn their mother tongue – by listening, repetition and loving affirmation.

“When I started out we didn’t have violins for the class,” Alison recalls. “But then Ian Ralston of the Classical Strings shop in Upper Hutt, who has since sadly passed away, lent us 20 violins to get us started. We now have 20 of our own, thanks to the kindness of the Wellington Suzuki community.” Families from the Taita community have also donated money to purchase violins and music stands.

The classes are also based on El Sistema, a voluntary sector programme from Venezuela that teaches social justice through music. As Alison says, “These are kids from communities with no access to classical music, and we give them that opportunity.”

The Taita Violins Group is a mixture of ages. “I started off with six- and seven-year-olds,” says Alison. “But then their older siblings wanted to take part too, so the group now includes children up to the age of 12. It’s so lovely seeing the joy of learning in the children.”

The group is now really large – 25 children are involved – and Alison’s hope for the future is to secure the funding to bring another teacher on board.

It’s another stunning success story that Great Start, which began as a bright idea, but has gone on to achieve all sorts of wonderful things in the community it serves, has been instrumental in. Of course, this has only been possible thanks to the kindness of our supporters.

Summer fun

We all need a break sometimes – but for many of the families we work with, this is not possible, as they are living on an extremely low income. So we were delighted to offer a group of children the chance to get away to summer camp!

One of these children was Glen*. His parents are separated, and his mum Mary* has mental health issues – so he has to take on a lot of the care for his younger siblings. At just 12 years old, Greg’s life is full of responsibilities and worries, and he has very little opportunity to just enjoy being a child.

But this summer, Glen was delighted to get the chance to attend summer kids’ camp in Waikanae. Here, he enjoyed heaps of new experiences and got to hang out with his peers in a relaxed environment.

Our family support worker Jackie* had identified Glen as one of several children who would benefit from a summer holiday break.

She says, “The break was beneficial to Glen’s mum’s health, and was great for Glen too! He has huge responsibilities in his day to day life, and it was so great to see him get away from all that and enjoy a worry free break.”

It’s always great for us to identify opportunities to help the children we work with. Our thanks to First Sovereign Trust, Pelorus Trust, and the John Ilott Charitable Trust, all of whom provided funding for children like Glen to attend holiday camps in 2011/12.

 

Quality time

When parents’ relationships break down, their children are often innocent victims of the conflict. Our supervised contact service provides a way for children to spend time in a safe, neutral and child-focused environment with a parent who no longer lives at home.

William’s story

William’s* parents separated after his dad James* suffered a brain injury when William was just two. Barnardos came into his life three years later.

“The relationship between William’s mum and dad had become really strained after the injury,” says Mel*, a supervisor for the Barnardos contact service. “It had changed his dad’s behaviour, making him very difficult to live with and resulting in an unsafe environment for William and his mum.”

But William’s mum didn’t want to deprive him of contact with James – she knew they’d had a close, loving relationship prior to the brain injury. So William and James started using our supervised contact service every week.

Mel says, “It was great to see them having fun playing together, building Lego figures and so on. James was so engaging, and encouraged William to build the figures correctly, helping him to learn. There was lots of affection between them too; they often exchanged hugs and kisses.”

William and his dad used the supervised contact service for two years, and their relationship developed positively during this time. They had lots of fun together, and showed a great deal of love toward one another.

Mel continues the story: “One day, we were delighted to hear from the family that they no longer needed the service as they had moved on to unsupervised contact. The ultimate goal of the supervised contact service is to help families make this transition.

“The family thanked us for providing a safe environment where the relationship between William and James could flourish while James continued his recovery. Without the contact service, William would never have had such a good relationship with his father and been able to see him on a regular basis, and would not now be enjoying unsupervised visits at his dad’s house.”

Why supervised contact works

Last year, over 1,000 children used our contact services.
Research shows that children who have a relationship with both parents generally enjoy better outcomes than those who don't. For William and many like him, the only way to maintain these relationships is through supervised contact. The service keeps children safely in contact with their parents, protects them from conflict, and offers someone they trust to support them – a Barnardos supervisor. Most importantly, it allows children to feel good about themselves, knowing that their parent cares about them. In order to keep the service available to those who need it, we need to raise almost $900,000 per year.

Family matters

Our family support service works with individual families facing challenges and helps them to make positive changes for the benefit of their children. One of these children is two-year-old Casey*, whose mum Susan* struggles with mental health problems.

Our family support worker Katie* says, “I’ve worked alongside Susan and Casey for the past year. When I first met Susan, her mental health was very poor, and she was unable to take care of her own basic needs – let alone Casey’s. They were living with Susan’s mum – but Susan never lost sight of her ultimate goal, to live independently with Casey. However, when she first told me this, she was in such a bad way that I had little faith this would ever be achievable.”

Katie sat down with Susan to identify her family’s needs, and to develop an action plan and parenting strategies to support Casey’s growth and development.

“At first this was incredibly challenging,” says Katie. “I was always careful to pitch things at a level suitable for Susan’s mental health status on any given day. And we always ensured Casey’s safety and wellbeing were paramount considerations.”

As the work progressed, Susan decided on a more realistic goal – to share care of Casey with Casey’s gran. Barnardos walked alongside Susan on this journey, and recently her goal became a reality.

Katie says, “It was a fabulous outcome for them all! Susan now lives independently, works in voluntary and paid employment, and spends time with Casey almost every day. It’s so wonderful, and so far beyond what seemed possible at first. Susan has made such amazing progress, and her journey has hugely improved the outlook for her little girl.”

Of course, there are thousands of children like Casey in New Zealand. Thanks to supporters like you, we are able to provide the services these children and their families so desperately need.

*names in all stories have been changed to protect privacy

1000 Days to get it right for every child!

Barnardos is part of the Every Child Counts coalition, which works to secure a positive future for children by ensuring they’re at the centre of policy and planning in New Zealand.

Every Child Counts is running the 1000 Days campaign, which concentrates on the vital importance of the first 1000 days of a child’s life.

These precious first days are critical to a child’s long term development. Getting it right for children early on means they will get every opportunity to develop to their full potential as healthy, emotionally mature, well-educated and productive adults.

At the moment New Zealand has among the worst child outcomes in the developed world – we rank 28th out of 30 countries. Low and ineffective public investment in the early years of childhood costs us dearly – poor outcomes for our children eat away approximately 3 per cent of our GDP, or $6 billion a year.

This has to change, and to make this change we need to invest more into giving our kids a really good start in life. That’s why Every Child Counts is campaigning to keep children at the top of the agenda.

As it happens, 1000 days is not only a vital period in a child’s life, but is also approximately the duration of one term of Parliament. So as the new parliamentary term progresses, Every Child Counts will keep monitoring Parliament’s performance and seeing how much it’s focusing on children’s needs. After all, the future of New Zealand depends on it!

You can find out more about the campaign at www.everychildcounts.org.nz