Stories of transformation and hope are evident in The Charles Plater Trust’s partnership with Transforming Lives for Good (TLG), a national, award-winning charity that works to support struggling children across the UK.
A grant from The Trust for £46,248 to support TLG’s ‘Early Intervention Programme’ has enabled the charity to launch 30 new Early Intervention Centres across the UK, training up to 200 new volunteer coaches, working with up to 50 different schools and most importantly, supporting 175 additional children who would otherwise not have received help at a critical time.
As part of the programme, struggling children and their families are connected with a trained volunteer coach, who can offer one-to-one mentoring in school for one hour a week for at least a year. Two children who have benefitted from this support, Lexi and Taiya, tell their story explaining what coaching has meant for them. The results are astonishing. As Alison, highlights:
"I've been a headteacher for seventeen years and I have never seen a child turned round in the manner that this has happened!"
Alison, the Headteacher at Lexi and Taiya’s school, explains “Lexi’s behaviours were so extreme that we couldn’t cope with them within school. They were a health and safety issue both to her and to our staff.” In fact, Lexi was at risk of permanent exclusion. “And Taiya,” Alison continues, “was a child who had many challenges. She came from a confused family where she lived in two places that came with two different sets of rules, and that was very difficult for her to process.” “At our school, we know that every child’s behaviour, no matter how extreme it is, is telling us something about how they are feeling and it is up to us to interpret that properly.” As Lexi and Taiya struggled to communicate the difficult challenges they were both facing, their school realised that something had to change.
In stepped TLG Early Intervention coaches, Toni and Miriam!
"[The] transformation can even be seen in the girls’ artwork. The paintings have gone from being quite black and quite dark to very bright and sparkly!” - Miriam
Watch the video below and discover how the right support at the right time can transform the lives of children on the brink of exclusion, allowing them to flourish at school instead.
You can find out more about Transforming Lives for Good by visiting the charity's website here.
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