Imagine you have just fled a violent relationship with jut the clothes on you back and your 2 children. You have just been welcomed to a Women’s refuge  that has given you  safe sanctuary and a place to heal from the abuse you have suffered. You feel that you have failed your children, that you should have left sooner. You are sad that they have been dragged out of their home and left all of their belongings, their toys and much loved pets behind. You feel like a failure.

The staff support you find your confidence, they support you to deal with the trauma you have endured and support you to heal. Staff support you to find a place for your children at a local school and they are immediately assessed. 

The sad fact is that children who live in a refuge, even for a short period of time have  lower attainment than a child who is not in refuge. They are more likely to have mental health issues and challenging behaviour, they are more likely to develop health conditions than children who do not live in refuge and statistically have lower attainment in later life.

We had to do something about this.

Pathway Project Staffordshire, Local Soroptimists and Refuge in Literacy came together to deliver a fantastic project  working with women in our refuge. 

The premise is simple, Refuge in Literacy is a National Charity that delivers tools to support women to encourage reading with their children from birth. The tools are simple to use and  easy to weave into everyday life and give mums the confidence to read with their children. It helps mum to build confidence and rebuild that special relationship with her child. 

The local Soroptimists supported the project with volunteers who worked 121 with the women in our refuge to ensure they had confidence to use the tools with their children. We were blown away by the results. Let me tell you about Polly and Oliver.

Polly came to refuge with 2 children , Oliver age 8 and Teagan age 5. She had endured years of physical abuse, coercive control, financial abuse and emotional abuse.  Pathway Project supported her with a home, 121 support and counselling amongst other things and found school spaces for Oliver and Teagan. Oliver had challenging behaviour, he found it hard to  concentrate and shouted at Mum that he was allergic to books! Oliver found it hard to deal with the huge emotions he was feeling. We supported Oliver with 121 support from a children’s worker to help him deal with the trauma he had witnessed. Polly was devastated when she attended school to be told Oliver was assessed and had a reading age of 6 years old. Polly already felt that she had let her children down, this really made her feel a failure.

We knew Polly was not a failure and we knew we could support her.  Polly came to a Refuge In Literacy meeting  and met Louie a wonderful volunteer from the Soroptimist. Louie worked with Polly to get to know her, build her confidence and shared some techniques around everyday ways to encourage literacy,  bedtime routines to support reading and suggested different mediums to interest Oliver in reading. Polly persevered, she worked really well with Louie and Oliver responded. Six months later Oliver was re-assessed by School. His reading age was now assessed as that of a 10 year old.

Louie, Polly and Oliver are elated and shared with me a video of Oliver reading his favourite book, a far cry from the Oliver who shouted that he was allergic to books! this change in Oliver was supported by the refuge in literacy project . A project that is literally changing lives.

Pathway Project could not support Oliver and Polly to instigate this amazing change without the brilliant resources form Refuge in Literacy and The Soroptimist volunteers who give their time so freely. This change is literally life changing for Oliver whose future now is much brighter. Its also changed Polly who now is much more confident in her own abilities.

If you are interested in supporting this amazing project you can make a donation by following the below link to our website, we use donations to fund book parcels and book tokens so children like Oliver who find a new love of reading can go and choose a book for themselves.  

Make a donation to Pathway Project

If you have a few hours to give and want to support a mum to understand how to use the resources so they can rebuild that special relationship with their child get in touch by email to  talktoeve@pathway-project.co.uk and volunteer your time for this project.