The Kendleshire Kids Foundation News - April 2021
Hello and welcome...
It has been great to see things beginning to look a little more normal, now, and like everyone else, here at the Kendleshire Kids Foundation, we are looking forward to next week when the roadmap opens even further.
As planned, we began our golf delivery sessions again on 19th April and our young people are pleased to be back with us having been away from golf for far too long. We are pleased to say that one of these young people will shortly be joining our newly formed youth committee, reporting to our board through our youth trustee. These young people have an important voice to assist us with future planning and we are looking forward to working with them. Also, another University of Bath student, Oli Porter, (also known to The Kendleshire Golf Club as a previous junior member of the club) is considering a position within our youth committee to support his forthcoming PhD – another positive step in our partnership with the University of Bath. Whilst we are currently advertising for the next placement student, we are delighted to say that Mia Blazey, who has been on placement with us since September, has decided that she would like to stay involved with us and is also considering joining our youth committee to assist the young people.
Dr Hayden Morgan now has everything in place to begin our research project and has met a number of our team and some of the young people on site. Parents/carers and the young people will be contacted, shortly, to help them understand the process of the research which will be conducted over a fairly long period of time.
If you haven’t had the chance, yet, to tune into Ben Littleton’s @bigbengolf and Emma Brown’s @theladygolfcoach (both part of our Foundation team) Podcast, please give it a whirl Fundamental Golf Podcast on Apple Podcasts as they were very excited to find themselves at 15th in the Apple charts during April!!!! Well done to both, for some really interesting sessions.
Our funding opportunities continue to expand, as you can see from the information on the newsletter. We are privileged to receive this support and are so delighted that our programme is working positively for this.
Please look out for the information on our forthcoming charity events – our main charity golf day and also the events organised by the Junior Captain, Shannon Jones, at The Kendleshire Golf Club. There will be an opportunity for everyone to be involved, personally, or through their businesses or employers – club members, non-members, any of our partners and supporters and anyone else who wants to experience a fantastic day of golf whilst supporting the needs of young people’s mental health.
As always, don’t forget to check out our website and social media platforms for more news and developments.
We hope that, like us, you are all looking forward to some significant changes in our lives, from this week, and let’s hope the future continues to look brighter.
Dawn Ward CEO
QUARTET COMMUNITY FOUNDATION FUNDING SECURED
Funding has recently been secured from the Quartet Community Foundations Express Grants Programme, funded by the Kitale Community First Fund supporting projects for disadvantaged young people in the West of England. A huge thank you for your generosity and support of out cause. We are looking forward to working with you.
Read more about their generous donations via this link: https://quartetcf.org.uk/fundholders/kitale-community-first-fund/
HARGREAVES FOUNDATION FUNDING SECURED
Funding has very recently been secured through the Hargreaves Foundation whose mission is ’Transforming Lives Through Sport and Education’. A huge thank you to the board of trustees for their generosity and support of our programme. We are looking forward to working with you.
Read more about the Hargreaves Foundation via this link: https://www.thehargreavesfoundation.org/
UNIVERSITY OF BATH RESEARCH PROJECT
Dr Haydn Morgan visits to begin preparing for our research project. Contact will be made with parents and young people for their help with this so we will be in touch shortly. This is important for our future development to co tin our vital work.
LAPTOPS NEEDED
If anyone is disposing of, or replacing their laptops, please consider donating them to us to support our online work and work experience. Contact Dawn Ward on info@kendleshirekidsfoundation.org if you can help!
ALL ABOUT US
The Kendleshire Kids Foundation’s programme is about using golf for the development of young people, ‘Golf for Good’, who have experienced adversity and trauma and to support them in building resilience for the future and improve physical health. We are the first ‘trauma responsive’ #SportForGood and #GolfForGood charity in the world.
Empowering young people by building resilience, self- esteem, encouraging teamwork and teaching life skills are all important for their future outcomes.
We use The Kendleshire Golf Club’s facilities, with the support of our specialist PGA golf coaches and one to one mentoring support through our associated company, Youth8, whose specialist workers use a person-centred, trauma responsive approach, as trusted adults, understanding how important this is for positive future outcomes.
The young people are provided with mentoring, golf coaching, golf equipment, food and drink. They also have opportunities to take part in work experience and online learning to gain certificates towards various life skills and future employment and are rewarded in various ways for their commitment to the programme. This all comes free of charge for their referring organisations or families.
To be part of the programme, referrals are accepted from schools or other avenues and there is no time restriction for them to be part of this great cause.
Continual monitoring and assessment, using our own taylor made packages for both mentoring and golf, is carried out to demonstrate the impact of the programme and to share learning across our community.
All workers and volunteers hold the relevant enhanced DBS certificates and certificates for safeguarding, child protection and ACE Awareness training. Many have also undertaken various mental health training. Nearly all members of our team are highly experienced in working with children and young people and many are highly qualified in their respective fields.
Our ‘Trauma Responsive’ Pledge Commitment
What makes us “Trauma Responsive”?
Multiple, serious and/or toxic stress/trauma (deep trauma) often holds a consistent influence on the entire lifetime of those that experience it. Therefore, it goes without saying, deep traumas will often take a lifetime to learn to proactively cope with, and possibly heal from. Many people may never reach a stage of full or complete recovery, but can, with trauma sensitive environments, people and services, consistently, around them. People can learn to better cope and live a full life with it, but this will be best supported when working with a person, not on a person, and will be at their own pace. Whether we are working with young people who have experienced violence, abuse, neglect, (due to mental or physical disability), racial, social, emotional or health inequalities, there are clear methods in which we can offer a safe environment that enables growth – (unlike the 10,000 hours rule (or thinking), we know coping with or healing from deep traumas will be more like a 20,000 hours rule to reach the same overall success & life balance, as a person living with less/no trauma/inequalities etc.) However, to be trauma responsive, is to be ‘responsible with trauma,’ that people carry, and consistently aid the process of learning to positively cope with, or heal, from its impact.
1. All our staff and volunteers hold purposefully relevant lived, learnt and qualified experience of, and/or knowledge, of coping with ‘deep traumas’ and often their ongoing impact across the life-course. Our staff and volunteers all have access to an immediate ‘supportive peer network’ and access to further clinical support, should this be required, at any time. This is fully agreed, understood, and supported by the entire organisation’s senior leadership team, staff, volunteers, and the organisation’s beneficiaries.
2. Long-term provision – Once a member of our services, we ensure that for all our staff, volunteers and beneficiaries, our services, programmes and support are available across the life- course, for all registered under our care. When we refer our beneficiaries onto other services/ support, we will stay connected with them and continue to record progress, to ensure they know they have our support for life and always have a place to return should they ever need it again – therefore, we will never need to ask the same ‘repetitive trauma related questions’ and will actively avoid retraumatising the individual.
3. For the beneficiaries, we have purposely designed group sessions that are empowering, safe, supportive, and small. This is with a high level of ‘staff’ to beneficiary ratio, according to the individual beneficiaries’ requirements.
4. Every one of our beneficiaries, we work with, will have ongoing, sustainable access to a trauma responsive mentor, for one-to-one support, according to the needs of the beneficiary, outside of, and between the group-based sessions.
5. We always start and maintain a person-centred approach with each of our beneficiaries and, because of this, we are a ‘needs led’ organisation.
Here, at Kendleshire Kids Foundation, we all understand and agree, that if we do not maintain all 5 of the above statements – we can no longer say we are a trauma responsive service and will not advertise ourselves as such.
Our work so far...
Here are some of our young people enjoying their golf coaching sessions with two of our professional teaching staff, Tom and Emma, providing an insight into what our sessions look like.
The Kendleshire clubhouse is also looking glorious. This is a facility we are privileged to be able to use to support our young people.
YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!
Your donation allows us to help more children and young people and improve their life chances by: providing leisure time activities and support to develop their skills, capacities and capabilities for the future, ‘Golf for Good’.
Registered charity number: 1192680
Partners and funding providers
We are extremely grateful to our amazing partners and funding providers for their support.
Our partners include:
Youth8
Golfinc
The Kendleshire Golf Club
The Kendleshire Golf Club Captains
The Kendleshire Golf Club
South Gloucestershire Youth Offending Team Local schools
WESPORT
England Golf
Golf Foundation
SGS College (Filton)
Hartpury College/University
CVS South Gloucestershire
Ben Clark- Travel Coach
The National Lottery Community Fund Square @Impact
University of Bath
Quartet Community Foundation
The Hargreaves Foundation
New partnership links
Ash Harris - professional golfer
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/ashley-harris-50b476113
Emma has liaised with Ash through the connection of Rheumatoid Arthritis. He launched ‘Enable Golf’, which promotes golf for the disabled, raising awareness through the media, to grow opportunities for those with disability to try and enjoy the game. We will be working with Ash to support us with further inclusive golf skills and knowledge for young disabled people.
Battleback Golf - Home (battlebackgolf.com) – Ben Littleton, our youth engagement lead has been liaising with this charity who offer ‘recovery through golf for wounded, injured and sick service personnel’. We will be forging a partnership with Battleback Golf to support our young people and provide opportunities for them to enjoy golf facilities at The Kendleshire Golf Club.
Ben Pullen Youth Exercise Centre - (https://youthexercisecentre.co.uk/) - Youth Exercise Centre strives to be an environment that can facilitate such improvements through age-appropriate strength training. Children and adolescents experiencing enhancements in strength, posture, motivation, and confidence while noticing decreases in muscle aches, pain and injuries are all results experienced from training at the Youth Exercise Centre. Ben came to meet with our delivery team, on site, and is looking at ways of supporting our programme.
Meet Our Team:
Dawn Ward - CEO
Pat Murphy – Chair of Trustees
Justin Coleman – Trustee - Finance Officer
Brenda Oxford – Trustee - Secretary
Gary Ward – Trustee
Matt Gerrard – Trustee – Social Media Co-ordinator
Remiese Williams – Youth Trustee
Emma Brown – PGA Lead Golf Coach
Tom Gillespie – PGA Golf Coach
Ben Littleton – Youth Engagement Lead/Director of Youth8
Harry Gethin – Youth Engagement Assistant
Paul Searle – Assistant Golf Coach
Sam Searle-Richards – Assistant Golf Coach
Georgina Bidder – Website Co-ordinator
Mia Blazey – Youth Engagement Assistant (University of Bath Placement Student)
Contact us:
Phone: 07397 160603
Email: info@kendleshirekidsfoundation.org
Address: The Kendleshire Golf Club, Henfield Road, Coalpit Heath, South Gloucestershire, BS362UY
Website: https://kendleshirekidsfoundation.org
Or follow us on our social media:
Facebook: @KendleshireKidsFoundation
Twitter: @KKidsFoundation
Instagram: @kendleshirekidsfoundation
