Rochdale Rotary assembly with NSPCC Childline Schools Service

Helen Matthews, the Schools Service Area Coordinator ChildLine North West with the President of the Rotary Club of Rochdale, Bob Chadwick holding Buddy, a large, green, cuddly speech bubble

Helen Matthews, the Schools Service Area Coordinator ChildLine North West, spoke to the Rotary Club of Rochdale about the Childline Schools Service, one of President Bob Chadwick’s charities. This year the club is intending to raise enough funds to allow an extra full time Childline volunteer to go into Rochdale schools.

Helen told almost 50 members and friends that the majority of callers to Childline were in their early teens, however most of them said that they had been suffering abuse of one type or another for several years by the time they called. In that time the emotional, physical and psychological damage has taken place is horrific. It casts a long shadow across the child’s adult life and often over future generations.

To reach out to younger children the Childline Schools Service has been launched with the aim of speaking with every child aged between nine and 11 in every school in the country every two years.

The service is recruiting and training a network of volunteers. Using the skill and sensitivity Childline has developed through helping millions of children over the last 28 years, the Schools Service volunteers will work with children and teachers in two stages.

Firstly, at a school assembly, the children will be introduced to Childline through Buddy, a large, green, cuddly speech bubble. A pair of volunteers describe a range of problems the children may experience using a sack that is filled with rubber bricks representing the burden a child may be carrying. Then the children are introduced to sources of help, which can help remove the burden, and the bricks, to lighten their emotional load.

A week or so later the children are re-introduced to Buddy in a classroom based workshop where key messages are reinforced. For example, abuse is wrong and is never a child’s fault or that a secret always has an end, they are not kept forever.

Helen presented a mock assembly to the club members, making them raise their hands if the wanted to ask or answer a question, and showed how, through the use of appropriate language for the age of the children, the Schools Service worked.

The ultimate aim of the Childline Schools Service is to be inclusive and engage every child between the ages of 9 and 11 thus empowering a generation to speak out and stop abuse.

President Bob Chadwick hopes to raise enough money in his year to fund the recruitment of a volunteer and their on-going training for a period of two years. This will need something in the region of £4,000.

More details: http://www.nspcc.org.uk/childlineschoolsservice