This year has been an exciting one for LEAH, as we have started to work for the first time in the Borough of Hounslow. As I write, six of our fantastic team of trained and experienced volunteers have been paired with clients in Hounslow, and have embarked on a year-long journey of weekly home visits to provide language support bespoke to their client. A huge thank you to Anna, Julie, Jill, Lynn, Jeanette and Kim and several further volunteers waiting in the wings to be paired in coming weeks. We are also hugely grateful to our funding partners at the London Borough of Hounslow and the Rayne Foundation.
LEAH has been supporting ethnic minority adults with low
levels of English in Kingston since 1982, and we have been working for over 10
years in Richmond. It’s therefore a big moment for us as a small organisation
to be beginning work in a new Borough, but we are ready! We have an experienced
team of committed staff and trustees and strong systems in place for training
and supporting volunteers which mean we are prepared for the challenge. But
more than that, we know the work we do is really needed by vulnerable, isolated
people (all women to date) in Hounslow.
“It’s exciting to be
LEAH’s first ever volunteer working in Hounslow. I can really see the need for
LEAH’s work in the borough” Anna, LEAH volunteer.
ESOL support bespoke to the starting point of the
learner and involving 1:1 buddying or mentoring, like that offered by LEAH, has
been identified as best practice in low-level language learning (DEMOS, 2014;
Greater London Authority, ‘English for
All’, 2012), yet there is noone offering this kind of support in many
London Boroughs including Hounslow. Our partners in Community
Partnerships and Lifelong Learning at the London Borough of Hounslow confirm that
there are residents not able to access local education services, often the most
vulnerable. Hounslow has high levels of inward migration (30% of households do
not have English as a main language) and has 16 pockets amongst the 20% most deprived
in the country (using the Indices of Deprivation), compared to 1 such area in
Kingston and none in Richmond.
The picture that this data paints has very much been
confirmed by our experiences of working in Hounslow to date. In Kingston and
Richmond, we have developed and far-reaching referral networks, including GPs,
schools, midwives, health visitors and others. In Hounslow, we started by
developing relationships with health visitors alone, and in three months
received more referrals than we can support in our initial pilot of 20 clients.
What’s more, these clients are highly vulnerable, not only being isolated and
with low levels of English as all our clients are, but almost all facing
additional challenges including having been trafficked to this country, being
victims of domestic violence, having
children with special needs, or living in real poverty without access to public
funds.
As Louise, LEAH’s Head of Programmes puts it “At LEAH we are used to working with very
vulnerable clients, but we have really noticed a difference in Hounslow. This
has put pressure on the team at LEAH because for every client we’ve worked with
referrers and other partner agencies to ensure the client is hooked into the support
they need and that the setting is safe for our volunteer. It’s also been emotionally
hard work, seeing clients living with distressing situations. However, we are
all finding it hugely motivating as well. It’s always true that our clients
need our support, but this is even more so with the clients we are working with
in Hounslow”.
Anna agrees that she can really see the difference she makes
in working with her client: “N was
trafficked to this country and lives in a hostel with her young children. She
often cancels at the last moment, and has a lot going on in her life, so
progress is slow. But she’s really keen to learn and I’m very glad to be
working with her, because she has no family support in the country”.
It’s just the start of LEAH’s important and challenging
journey in Hounslow, watch this space to hear more about our work in LEAH’s
third London Borough and what we learn from it.
Kate Brown, LEAH Director
