The Children's Work Today

One of the areas of concern to the Trustees has been the needs of children and families in the most needy parts of Bristol and Weston-super-Mare. Coupled with that the Trustees have sought to support local churches in such needy areas as they respond to the needs of children and families. Therefore, today in Bristol and Weston-super-Mare professional teams of staff seek to provide a range of services for children and families as well as providing support, encouragement and resources for local churches. As we become more community-minded we seek to extend our role in more and more areas. The following type and range of activities are typical:-

providing day care for children at a Centre.

helping to supervise a church-based parent and toddler group, nursery or creche.

running a self-esteem group for children in a local primary school.

helping and supporting parent's groups.

teaching a Bible study for parents.

running a children's bereavement group.

organising a play-scheme.

co-ordinating an anger management group for parents.

monitoring self-help groups for parents.

counselling.

providing advocacy help for parents.

helping in homes including cooking, family management skills, and general home visiting skills.

taking an assembly, school club or being a teacher's assistant in community based primary schools.

running an after school's club.

assessing community needs.

meeting with representatives of the statutory agencies.

and so on ......

There are many different ways in which Christian love and care may be shared and a variety of different models of care are currently being explored. It is hoped that as those models are tried, models that can be replicated would be extended to needy areas other than those in which the work currently takes place. We are currently working in Weston-super-Mare, and in the Southmead and Lawrence Weston areas of Bristol. We are also exploring ways in which we might provide training for local churches in a variety of ways to enable them to be more effective in their work amongst children and families.

The schools work continues to grow and develop. As well as work in primary schools through the work outlined above, schools workers along with volunteer year team members seek to provide Christian teaching and discipling of many young people in Bristol Secondary schools. Schools work can be a very exacting and challenging activity. There is much need in our schools to provide support for teachers and especially in supporting and resourcing the challenge of teaching spiritual values within the curriculum. As this area develops so the work that George Müller began in pioneering provision continues to explore new and exciting areas of work. There are currently three schools workers and each year a year team seeks to support the work in education and community care. Training is given to year team members each Wednesday and the work links with a number of other projects which work with young people.

A number of other organisations are working in similar areas of care and for the last few years the work has developed relationships with some of those organisations. Usually called Associated Ministries, such relationships have been very beneficial for both the children's work and also for those other Charities.