Lambeth Stories 

Stories. How and why

We never apply pressure to our grantees to provide us with feedback or images. Where they do, we are grateful, and use their stories here on our website and in some of other publications. We do this to encourage other applicants, and also to show the range of things we fund.  If you are a grantee and want to give feedback follow this link where you can also read past comments.

High Trees Community Development Trust’s Employment Project enabled them to work with ‘S’: 

• S suffered both physical and mental ill-health and had a history of offending behaviour when she first came into contact with the project. She was helped to gain the SIA [Security Industry Authority] badge and was offered occasional work with an agency. They soon offered her regular work at a specific venue, but on a self-employed basis. At this stage her self-esteem and confidence had grown but she was by no means sure that she could manage self-employed status. The project helped her with this, grew her confidence and taught her basic record keeping skills. S has now been working as self-employed for more than a year and was recently supported in successfully filing her first ever tax return. S is now an economically active resident of Lambeth.” 

Homestart’s Resilient and Ready Project enabled them to work with ‘L’:

• L is a single parent with two sons, aged 13 and 2. The referral to Home Start Lambeth was made by her Health Visitor. L suffers from mental health problems: she finds leaving the house difficult and as a result, she and her young son C spent most of their time at home. She was matched with a Home Start Lambeth volunteer and a good realtionship developed. Gradually, the volunteer was able to build up to short visits out of the home, just for a walk down the road or to the park. L initially found this overwhelming but made progress. A major achievement was to attend the Home Start Lambeth Christmas party with the support of their volunteer. The volunteer continued to help the family take new steps and most visits now involve supporting L to take her son to a playgroup, where he has the opportunity to play with other children and try new things.

The Baytree Centre helps fund their PEACH Mentoring project for girls: 

• D is 10 and lives with her mother who also accesses the Women’s service at Baytree. English is an additional language for the family. When D first started attending Baytree she was reluctant to participate in clubs, said she was 'rubbish' at everything and that everything is boring. Baytree saw her confidence and curiosity grow. She became more willing to participate, putting her hand up and contributing ideas to class. She made friends through the Maths and Literacy club and developed her teamwork and independent learning skills.