Media

Announcement today allows further expansion of SW!TCH Lives violence prevention programme
We're excited to announce that TODAY, on #WorldMentalHealthDay2019, more schools across a greater geographical area, including Barking & Dagenham, Redbridge, Havering and now Thurrock will have access to LifeLine's SW!TCH Lives and VIP mentoring programme, designed to improve the life chances of young people who are on the edge of a life of violence and crime, school exclusion or poor mental health.

New FUNDED service for schools – supporting young people with mental health issues
Many of the young people LifeLine work with have been deeply affected by Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) – or trauma. A growing body of research has identified the harmful effects that such experiences occurring during childhood, or teenage years (for example among others, exposure to domestic violence, or substance abuse or household mental illness) have on lifetime health. Individuals who have ACEs also tend to have more physical and mental health issues as adults than those who don’t and also tend to have a shorter life expectancy*.

Working with young people who are ‘on the edge’
A friend of mine recently commented that for some young people, 'the edge' is very close. Her and her husband have prioritised family life. They place a high value on having fun together, and talking together as a family has been something they have tried to cultivate. When one of their children came back from the first term at university and described some of the things that were going on, they were able to support and point them in the right direction. This child (no longer a child!) is making positive choices about the future - career, relationships and lifestyle. 'The edge' is quite a long way off.

Partnering with others helps to create community
"At the age of 23 I quit full time youth work. I was burnt out and decided to pursue my degree training and get a job in business. "During the previous three years, along with a team of volunteers, I'd had great fun working with young people. In the course of developing them to be leaders, my creative skills had blossomed and we'd taken the young people on various local, national and international peer leadership programmes. However, fun as it was, I had become frustrated with my team and peers because (I felt) they didn’t do things as well as me. Frustration caused me to think that I was the solution. A very arrogant position which caused me to burn out and eventually quit. "Eventually I got a job in South Kensington which required lots of commuter time. "My mentor bought me the book “Now, Discover Your Strengths” by Marcus Buckingham. As I read, I started to see that my peers were not, in fact ‘useless’ but that they had different strengths to me. I realised that while there were certain skills I was strong in, there were other skills my peers would be strong in. The way to get the best out of them would be to allow each to function in their area of strength.

Young people NEED a trusted adult…
According to the charity Our Time, the cost of non-intervention for children who are affected by mental health issues is estimated to be a staggering £17 BILLION per year. Furthermore, research indicates that children living with a parent with mental illness will themselves experience some degree of mental ill-health, unless they get some early support.

FaithAction’s community english programme secures new government funding
We're excited to announce that FaithAction, our network of over 2,500 faith-based organisations in the UK, has once again secured funding from the Ministry of Housing, Community and Local Government to deliver the Creative English programme at 55 hubs across the country. Since 2013, over 10,000 learners have benefited from the Creative English approach to learning. After just 10 weeks, 100% of Creative English learners say that their confidence to speak increases, 78% become confident to use English in functional day-to-day situations, while 88% of learners who leave their home less than once a week at the start of the…

20 years of finding solutions to local issues
As we approach our 20 year anniversary next year, we are inspired to reflect on the legacy that we have left thus far and to think about our trajectory for the next 20 years. How will our actions of today result in a positive impact in the future? By the end of this year alone we will have brought over £2.3m into the voluntary sector in our area. Over the past 19 it's been an astounding £54.5m. We can confidently say that we are an established, mature VCSE organisation, proficient at delivering contracts and running a business.

Join us in tackling knife crime in Barking & Dagenham this Christmas
'Deji is dead. He was stabbed, I don't understand... Why?' Chilling words from the mother of a former LifeLine School student, killed in the middle of the day, in broad daylight, on a residential street in south London. He will never have the opportunity to fulfil the dreams he had discussed with his mentor when he left LifeLine school with a 100% attendance record in 2012. All sorts of questions fill our minds: 'How on earth are his family coping with this dreadful news? What went wrong? What can we do to prevent this happening to other students?'

LifeLine Projects receives £147k from Young Londoners Fund
The Mayor of London created the £45m Young Londoners Fund in July 2018, to help children and young adults make the most of our amazing capital. The fund is supporting 72 community projects across the city, to help young people at risk of getting swept up in crime to fulfil their potential. LifeLine Community Projects is receiving £147,000 over three years. Our Standing TALL project (Thriving, Aspiring, Learning, Leading) will engage 540 young people at-risk of exclusion and involvement in criminal activity, and walk with and support them towards improved wellbeing, resilience and meaningful opportunities at school and in the…

Creating a youth movement vs running youth programmes
On the 22nd September LifeLine delivered a series of workshops on knife crime to students in a Dagenham school. Although the school had registered 15 year-11 students for one of the workshops, it had to be cancelled, as only 12 were in attendance. One student was recovering in hospital having been stabbed the previous week and two others had been arrested by police investigating the killing of 15-year-old Jordan Douherty, the youngest person to be killed by knife crime in London this year.