South London Tamil Welfare Group
Key Facts
Location
Project Criteria
Contact
Selistin Lidwin Nayagam
Email
Project funding
£148,920
Funding round
South London Tamil Welfare Group (SLTWG) was established in June 1985 in response to a significant increase in the number of Sri Lankan refugees arriving in South London. It is based in South London and it provides services to Tamil asylum seekers, refugees and settled migrants living in the South west and South East London Boroughs. It provides services under 6 sections to meet the unmet needs of the Tamil community. Immigration & Welfare Benefits, Family Support Services including Parenting Education, Education services, Training and Employment Support, Health promotion.
We have worked in Croydon from 2006 to 2008.We will be continuing to work in Croydon till March 09.
SLTWG has now a strong presence in Croydon through effective partnerships with local schools: Cornville, Kingsley, Elmwood, West Thornton, Purely Children Centre, Broad green Children Centre, Lanfranc School, and Asburton Saturday Tamil School. We work with 90 families including young fathers who are very supportive of all activities. We also established networks with CVA, PCT and other organisations like Parentlineplus, Homestart, Extended Schools, and Foundation for Life and local parenting networks
The Aim of the Project funded by Parenting Fund Round 3
The Aim of the project is to offer effective interventions for Tamil parents whose children are vulnerable to gang membership, or carrying knives and guns so as to prevent the children committing criminal behaviours in the future and promoting stronger family relationships and improved parental confidence and skills through intergenerational activity.
Project Summary:
A growing number of young Tamils are becoming gang members and using knives and weapons. Our project aims are to provide A holistic early intervention and prevention provision targeting young people (8 -16 yrs) identified to be at risk of offending and/or are vulnerable to gang membership, carrying knives or involvement with guns. We will work with both the young people and their parents/carers to promote stronger family relationships and improved parental confidence and skills through intergenerational activity. This project will run over 2 years targeting 5 key primary/ secondary schools in Croydon. Our target is 100 families over 2 years
We aim to use the following programmes to achieve our outcomes.
1 The CAB (Changing Attitude & Behaviour) A generic interactive, participatory group workshop challenging the attitudes/ beliefs which underpin the behaviour placing these young people at risk. This structured programme incorporates 12 x 2 hr sessions related to prevention of anti-social behaviours.
2 1-2-1 Peer Mentoring Programme – each beneficiary of the CAB programme will be assigned a qualified peer mentor to receive weekly 1hr 1-2-1 mentoring support sessions.
3. Parallel Parenting Programme and support Service will be facilitated for the Tamil Parents by SLTWG. The workshops which aim to equip the parents with skills to better tackle the issues that put them at risk as well as improve relationships and gain a better understanding of each other and the clashes between traditional Tamil and modern British cultures. This unique opportunity brings the parents and young people together in the same workshop.
Our work with Foundation 4life in schools highlighted concerns around gang involvement and affiliation, offending behaviour and in some instances access to firearms and substance abuse. There is NO provision currently available which specifically works with the Young people at risk from the Tamil community and their parents. We have already held 1-2-1 surgeries with dysfunctional Tamil families at Lanfranc school.(Ex: Children abusing Parents)
Our own caseloads from referral from schools, and consultation with parents where they have raised their concerns about their pre-teenagers and teenagers around gang involvement, affiliation to the wrong crowd. They have expressed their interest through support for early prevention and intervention regarding their children. Our grass root knowledge of the Tamil community needs is obvious in our two external evaluation reports.
External Evaluation of DfES project of SLTWG conducted by June 2005
External Evaluation of Parenting Fund project conducted by Seal Associates in November 08.