Empowerment Service Feed back
Feed back from of evaluation from users has indicated:
• Clients like the service because it is African-Caribbean and the Centre work with all the family.
• Clients feel secure in knowing the CarAf has been around for 25 years, some have used the Centre’s other services or know some one who has and who have been very pleased with the service.
• A number of parents/mothers have referred their children (young person) to the service.
Parents Voices:
The teachers and staff are always helpful and forthcoming and provide and excellent opportunity for us. We are truly grateful to be part of the CarAf Centre.
Shamin Ahmed:
The Mandela School has been a positive environment for my son. The School has taught a great deal. As parents, we would be at a loss with the education support Mandela has provided over the years.
Name withheld:
My child has learnt so much more than we could have ever taught him.
Name withheld:
I like the Mandela School, it is very helpful. My child likes it too and is improving a lot.
Rochelle’s Story
Rochelle had been attending a local secondary school but more recently her behaviour has become extremely challenging towards authority in school and she has become very defiant. This of course affected her educational progress and she was on the verge of being permanently excluded as she had already served a number of fixed term exclusions. Mum called The CarAf Centre’s Educational Advocacy Service for support with the difficulties taking place in school. We undertook a review of all the factors and experiences that had taken place in Rochelle’s life both at home and at school this was done with both mother and daughter’s consent and participation. It became apparent that Rochelle’s behaviour had been heavily influenced by certain emotional issues and difficulties in the home environment. Mum had suffered from domestic violence which was often witnessed by Rochelle.
The Educational Advocacy Service supported Mum at an exclusion prevention meeting with the school. At the meeting we negotiated a range of strategies to be put in place to support Rochelle’s emotional needs and hopefully deter further exclusion.
Mum was referred to The CarAf Centre’s Empowerment Service for counselling and Rochelle was also offered emotional support through the Empowerment Service.
With the support strategies in place in school and here engagement with The Empowerment Service, Rochelle’s behaviour improved dramatically in a short space of time and her educational progress is now back on track and going well in school. Rochelle still has another year left in school but so far so good.
Parenting Course Testimonial
I am very grateful for the opportunity I was given in attending the parenting course at the CarAf centre last spring. My facilitators Ade and Mendarina were excellent at explaining the contents of the course and encouraging us in trying new ways of dealing with our children.
I must say, I greatly benefited from this parenting course as I was having problems with my daughter aged 9, at a difficult period in our lives, that of going through a difficult divorce and her father trying to use our daughter as a weapon against me. I found it harder and harder to deal with my daughter: she was rude and complained a lot, she behaved quite spoilt. She was also suffering from bullying at school and I was worried both about her and about me as a parent struggling to keep the peace and respect at home. So when I was told about this parenting course I was really excited and I had great hopes that it would help me and my daughter. In fact, the course was even better than I thought. It was just so clever and in many ways simple and easy to follow.
I liked everything about it, and in particular the revelation that your children need to know their roots, their origins well and be proud of them. I also like the spiritual side of some of the exercises, the ‘rites of passage’. It really all made sense and my daughter and I have now resolved a lot of the pain and conflict that was flying about. Of course, she is a child and it is her job to push boundaries and she is very good at that but I feel so much more confident now after having been to the course to deal with that, to understand where she is coming from and also to make sure there is fair discipline, and fairness all way round.
This course should be compulsory to all parents because it is such an eye-opener and a great help in parenting which is hard in itself, no one can deny this! When you become a parent there is no manual really that someone gives you to help cope with all the difficulties. This course is IT! It’s brilliant and it just helps you focus more on your child and ways of building trust and harmony, in love.>
I would recommend this course to anyone. I have done many courses in my life and I am a graduate but I can honestly say this is the most important course I have ever attended!
Finally, the support given by both the facilitators and the other parents attending the course was really beneficial and encouraging. The friendships developed and we often had a good laugh together. The food provided was fantastic too.
A great, great course.
A big thank you from me,
Anniversary Event Testimonial
Christine Burgess-Jones:
I am just writing to you to formally congratulate you and all your staff on the excellent CBPTA Anniversary event which you hosted last Saturday. I must say that it was an amazing evening where, I am sure, that all your guests like me were really inspired and occasionally moved to tears by all the passionate speeches made about raising the academic achievement of BME Youth.
As a current serving member of the National Learning and Skills Council and having previously worked as a Commissioner for Racial Equality I was proud to witness such a well-organized evening in which we were so richly fed and entertained by so many highly talented performers (academically, intellectually as well as physically) in such luxurious surroundings.
Educational Advocacy Case Study
Permanent exclusion is disproportionately high among BME students and undermines their capacity to learn and achieve.Two students A & B (brother and sister) were threatened with permanent exclusion following a number of fixed term exclusions for persistent inappropriate challenging behavior and threats to staff. The Father requested The CarAf Advocacy Services’ support as an intervention to keep children in school.
The Advocacy Service held a number of meetings with children’s father to assess the case. We also contacted the Head teacher to set intervention meetings with various staff members at the school to discuss exclusion prevention interventions. Meeting were held and various exclusion prevention strategies were put in place to help behavior management and improve learning.
This resulted in improvement in the behavior with the children having learnt to take responsibility for their behavior. Their father now has regular contact with the school and provides more support to school and children, further exclusion has been prevented and children’s learning has improved.
Empowerment Case Study
A young person was seen once a week for 7 months, Family sessions were also included where the father attended.
School was concerned about how a young person was socializing with other children and how he chose to respect and disrespect certain members of staff, and referred the Student with the permission of the parent to the Empowerment Service.
In the sessions we addressed issues around secrets in the family and the emotional burden that impacted on his behavior.
Through our intervention the difference was an improved relationship with father, Improved confidence in who he (young person) was significant improvement his relationship with his peers, and improved behavior with teachers in school, which has reduced the likelihood of facing a permanent exclusion.
