How does your work benefit children? What does The Place2Be do? How does your work benefit parents?How does your work benefit schools?Why is The Place2Be’s work important? Where is The Place2Be working?Which children receive support?Does The Place2Be work in secondary schools?Where do the Volunteer Counsellors come from?When was The Place2Be founded?How does The Place2Be fit in with government policy?How do I recommend a school? How does your work benefit children?
The Place2Be benefits children by enabling them to share their troubles and emotions, increasing their self-esteem and coping skills, and helping them to communicate more effectively, so that they can build relationships with others. This gives children a better chance of staying in school and out of trouble.
Back to top What does The Place2Be do?
The Place2Be gives children in schools a safe place to express their feelings through talking, creative work and play. We provide a range of school-based support services directly to children, parents and school staff members. For example, we provide one-to-one and group counselling sessions, a lunchtime service and whole-class activities such as ‘circle time’. We also provide training to our Place2Be Volunteer Counsellors and many other adults who work with children.
Back to top How does your work benefit parents?
The Place2Be benefits parents by helping them to better understand and communicate with their children, to grow in confidence and improve their parenting skills. This means family life can be less of a struggle.
Back to topHow does your work benefit schools?
The Place2Be benefits schools by providing effective early intervention to address emotional, behavioural and social problems. Coping with disruptive pupils means a teacher's time is taken away from the rest of the class. So the whole class benefits when we help individual children to cope.
By reducing the problems caused by disruptive children, we also reduce teacher stress and truancy levels and lower the number of exclusions. This raises staff morale and can positively influence staff retention rates.
We know that when children are unhappy and preocupied they are not able to focus on learning. We have seen pupil attainment levels rise after they have received support from The Place2Be.
Back to topWhy is The Place2Be’s work important?
Social, emotional and behavioural skills underpin every aspect of life. When children have those skills, they can sustain friendships, solve problems and learn to manage strong feelings such as frustration, anger and anxiety. Without them, they struggle and can go off the rails. By addressing children’s emotional, behavioural and mental health needs at an early stage, it is possible to remove barriers to learning and lay the foundations for making healthy life choices in teenage and adult years.
Back to topWhere is The Place2Be working?
The Place2Be is currently working with 155 schools across the UK.
We work with clusters of schools in the same area. We call these clusters 'hubs'.
We have 17 hubs: Blyth, Brent, Burnley, Cardiff, Croydon, Durham, Ealing, Edinburgh, Enfield, Greenwich, Harlow, Leeds, Manchester, Medway, Nottingham, Southwark and Wandsworth.
Back to topWhich children receive support?
The Place2Be is accessible to all children in schools where we operate. On average 50% of the children in the schools where we work access our services. The Place2Be is currently available to 50,000 children around the UK.
Back to topDoes The Place2Be work in secondary schools?
The Place2Be’s work to support children as they make the transition from primary to secondary has continued to develop. We are currently working in The Globe Academy, Southwark, MarkHall Secondary School, Harlow, Stewards Secondary School, Harlow and the Blyth School Community College,
In addition, the opening of our Blyth Hub in April 2006 introduced our services to several Middle Schools, where the children are aged 9-13 (Year 5 to Year 8).
We have had interest from a number of other London secondary schools and academies and continue to progress our work in this area.
Back to topWhere do the Volunteer Counsellors come from?
Our Volunteer Counsellors come from a variety of backgrounds. Some are students in training and volunteer with The Place2Be as part of their work placement requirements. Others come through our community-based training programme, which provides adults with the necessary counselling skills to work with us. We also have a growing number of fully qualified clinicians who choose to volunteer with us. Feedback suggests this is largely due to the quality of our supervision and the fact that counselling children informs their own private work with adults.
Back to topWhen was The Place2Be founded?
The Place2Be was founded as a charity in 1994 by Benita Refson OBE, Trustee and Chief Executive.
The charity originates from a Family Service Unit (FSU) project in Southwark which was called The Place to Be. This project placed a counsellor in a primary school and was managed by Camila Batmanghelidjh. In 1993, Benita Refson (a trained counsellor) visited the project and was impressed with the idea of providing emotional support to children at an early age. After seeking professional advice, and with the support of the FSU, Benita set up an independent charity in 1994 called The Place to Be which was recognised by the Charity Commission in September of that year. The Place to Be continued to be project managed by Camila Batmanghelidjh until 1995 when she resigned. The Place to Be was renamed The Place2Be in June 2003.
Benita continues to be The Place2Be’s Chief Executive on a full-time, voluntary basis.
Back to topHow does The Place2Be fit in with government policy?
In England, our work delivers against key criteria for Every Child Matters (the national framework for children’s services), primarily: Common Core of Skills and Knowledge (e.g. through effective communication and the sharing of information), Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (e.g. through our whole-school approach and the promotion of positive behaviour and effective learning), Healthy Schools (e.g. through the provision of confidential pastoral support) and Workforce Development (e.g. through the training we offer to other professionals who work with children).In Scotland, our work is in line with national policy objectives for the mental health and wellbeing of children, supporting all four key aims: 1.) to raise awareness and promote mental health and wellbeing, 2.) to eliminate stigma and discrimination, 3.) to prevent suicide and 4.) to promote and support recovery.
Back to topHow do I recommend a school?
To recommend a school or LEA cluster, please call our development team on 020 7923 5506 or send an email to: development@theplace2be.org.uk
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