Sewing/Textiles group at With Kids

Learn a new skill or improve on an old one with our new Textile/Sewing Group. Do you know how to use a sewing machine? Know how to mend a seem? These fading skills are extremely useful but are we right in saying it is a dying trend? Maybe you are a dab hand with a needle and thread but there are always new tricks to learn!

We're not expecting to become the next big Fashion Designer but we will help you learn how to make good use of your home sewing kit for mending socks or taking up a hem. Whatever your skills are with a sewing machine everyone is welcome!

The course last for 8 weeks and is from 12.30pm-2.30pm beginning on Wednesday 8th February at 15 Annfield Place, Dennistoun.

All activities are FREE but places are limited so you MUST PHONE to book. Early booking recommended to avoid disappointment. If you are unable to attend please let is know so we can offer the place to others.

Phone Suzy on 0141 550 5770 to book your place.

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Get to know us a little better...

We recently posted about the work we do here at With Kids and we wanted to let you know a little bit more about our other facilities and how important they are to our work. Our Drop-In Centre's in Glasgow and now in Edinburgh are very much at the centre of what we do.

They aim to create a place for vulnerable children and families that offers a range of therapeutic services, including group work and play therapy. The centre complements our other work with children and families providing emotional, social and practical support aimed at building the resilience and social skills required by children to achieve their full potential.


Our Drop In Centres
With assistance from a number of trusts and foundations we completed the refurbishment of our Glasgow premises in June 2010. The refurbishment created a state of the art drop-in centre which provides access to two specially adapted therapy rooms, meeting rooms and a central cafe type space. Many of the children and parents we work with are more comfortable using a facility which is independent from statutory authorities and more likely to engage with a voluntary organisation.


Our new drop-in centre in Wester Hailes, Edinburgh aims to mirror our Glasgow base and we are looking forward to the year ahead to develop our work in Edinburgh. We plan to keep you posted on all the latest developments in our Edinburgh base and all of our newest programmes in 2012.


What's on at With Kids
We organise a range of activities including the Cinema Club which provides a cinema experience complete with hot dogs, popcorn, ice cream and a classic children’s film at a fraction of the cost of going to the local multiplex. Our summer programme offers a range of activities and trips for families has also been run from the drop-in centre. You can read our blog about our Summer Programme here.


Working Directly with parents
We also work directly with parents to expand their understanding of parenting, the needs of their children, and the importance of play to improve communication between parents and child and enable the parent to provide the support necessary to meet the needs of the child. An important first step in this process is often providing very practical support to parents to help deal with issues such as helping them clean up their house, provide furniture, help them to make sure their children are up and ready for school, etc.


To find out more about the work we do here at With Kids you can visit our website or you can keep up to date with us on our Facebook and Twitter page.

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Primary Pupils spread Christmas Cheer

Pupils from St Joseph’s Primary School, Milngavie were delighted to play Santa and hand over a sack-load of stocking-filler gifts to charity last week, on Friday, December 2nd.

Children from the school handed in over 50 presents as they visited Santa in his grotto during their fundraising Christmas Fayre last month (Nov 26) to be donated to With Kids.

With Kids works with families and children in the east end of Glasgow, where there are some of the highest levels of poverty in Scotland and the UK. St Joseph’s Primary Acting Head Teacher Ann Rice said:

 “Christmas is a time for giving as well as receiving and the children here have shown great generosity in choosing, wrapping and donating these presents for other children their age who are not as lucky as they are.”

Collecting the gifts Suzie Blair from With Kids said:

“This is an amazing gift will make all the difference for other children who live not so far away on Christmas Day.

“All families can find they have difficulties from time to time and there can often be other factors which mean parents struggle at this time of year. With Kids is there to support the needs of children and parents all year round.”

St Joseph’s Primary PTA Christmas Fayre took place on November 26th and raised £1,800 which will go towards a new interactive whiteboard for the school.

Co-chair of the PTA Emma Whitfield said:

“Not only have the families, parents and carers of St Joseph’s shown great generosity in fundraising for new much need school equipment, but that pupils have shown they are thinking about those who don’t have quite as much as they do as well - which is what Christmas is all about.”

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We are in the shortlist!

With Kids have been placed into the short list of The Royal Bank of Scotland's Community Force initiative and we need you help! With over 1000 projects and charities from all over Scotland entered into the running, we need as many votes as we can to be in with a chance of being awarded £6000 from RBS. This money would make a huge difference and would help improve the services we provide.

The voting opens on the 26th of September and we are asking for your support and help. To get a better understanding of what we do and how the award will help With Kids please click HERE. Please take the time to vote for us and spread the word by asking your network of friends to vote for us too. You will be helping us improve our services and in turn, help us to make a difference. 

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Clare's Law:

A recent article in the Metro reported that in England and Wales, two women in England and Wales are killed by a former or current partner, every week. Whereas 10 per year fall victims to this crime in Scotland.

Clare Wood became one of the victims in 2009 when she was strangled by her boyfriend, George Appleton, a man with a history of violence and known to the police, who she met on the internet.

The Government's Victims' Commissioner Louise Casey is mounting a campaign called Clare's Law to allow people to find out whether new partners have a violent past. Police would be able to warn women if a new partner had a violent past under plans to reduce the number of deaths and injuries from domestic abuse.

A campaign for the change was launched in July 2011, with the support of police chief. The proposal, which is modelled on Sarah's Law, is backed by Ms Wood's father Michael Brown, comes amid concern that women are increasingly meeting men via the internet with little or no knowledge of their pasts.

Ms Blears said: ''Women in Clare's situation are often unaware of their partner's previous relationships and this can mean they start a relationship with someone with no idea if they have a violent past. Clare's tragic death shows how vulnerable women aren't always protected under the current law, and until women are given the right to know if their partner has a history of serial domestic abuse, they can't be sure of the risk that they face."

Ms Blears believes that changing the law women will be empowered to take informed action about their relationship which will give them the chance to protect themselves and prevent domestic abuse from happening before it begins.'

There has been a lot of media coverage regarding the proposal, with varied opinion. One report from the Guardian states that "Clare's Law" is based on the assumption that people would make safe choices about relationships if they were better informed.  However, it's thought that the proposal would not be able to stop serial abusers to continue. The Guardian's Lucy Reed continues, the scheme could allow the sharing of information, however, she also predicts potential victims being persuaded that the accusations to be malicious gossip, a misunderstanding, perhaps mistaken identity or, that their partner was defending themselves against a violent ex-partner.

Domestic violence is at epidemic levels in this country and Libby Brooks is concerned that resources for those escaping it are badly funded and under-imagined. After reading into this, it is clear that there are many opinions and contrasting views on this subject.

But what do you think? Should this law be past? Do you think this would help reduce the number of cases of domestic violence? Or do you think that it would be a false sense of empowerment? We would really love to hear your opinion on this subject, so please let us know by commenting on our facebook page or you can tweet about it and follow us on twitter.

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Have you tagged yourself in the Mid Summer Ball photos yet?

On June 23rd this year the Hilton Hotel played host to With Kids' charity Mid Summer Ball. We are delighted to report that the event was a great success and through the generosity of those who attended, we managed to raise in excess of £17,000. We really cannot thank everyone enough and we are sure you will all agree that everyone looked fabulous.

For those of you who shared the night with us, we have posted some photos of the night on our facebook page and would like to invite you all to take a minute to view the photos and tag yourself or people you know.

The photos seen here are just some of the photos that were taken on the night. To see the rest and to tag yourself, visit our facebook page. Thank you all again, for a wonderful night. The funds raised will go a long way in helping us and the work we do for the kids we support and their families.

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BBC Three's 'Poor Kids' Documentary- highlights issues that With Kids tackle everyday

If you didn't get the chance to see 'Poor Kids' on BBC 3 the other night, we would urge you to do so as it covers and highlights one of the main issues we are faced with at With Kids. 

The BBC3 documentary depicted the issues of poverty through the eyes of three young children. Eight-year-old Courtney, 10-year-old Paige and 11-year-old Sam, all of whom are living in different parts of the country, however, what they have in common is that they all have similar lives and similar living conditions. 

The kids honest and frank take on their situations reflect the stories of some of the 3.5 million children living in poverty in the UK. This statistic, according to the BBC, is one of the worst child poverty rates in the industrialised world.

One of the three children featured in the documentary was 10-year-old Paige, who, for most of her life has been in a damp infested flat in one of Glasgow’s tower blocks in the Gorbals. Although the tower blocks have since been demolished and Paige has been re-housed to Drumchapel, the issues she faced on a daily basis, whilst living in her damp, mould infested flat in the Gorbals, are familiar to us at 'With Kids'. We work with vulnerable kids and their families in the East end of Glasgow, who are all affected by poverty and the knock on effects that are related with poverty. Our work is based on a preventative approach that involves early intervention, working with children and families in the East End of Glasgow. Central to this work are the core concepts of building self esteem and the desire to “skill up” children and crucially also the carers of children. 

Take a look at one of our videos from our blog. This video highlights the story of Robert Carlyle's early life. One of With Kids ambassadors, Robert was born and brought up in a one-parent family in the East End of Glasgow and was faced with the similar poverty issues that the three kids of 'Poor Kids' were faced with.

There has been a huge response from the public regarding this documentary, that was originally aired in June. According to director Jezza Newman's blog 'the number of your comments has set a record on the TV blog'.  The feedback and general desire from those who have commented on Jezzas blog want to help relieve the issues of poverty and the makers of the documentary, True Vision, highlight ways to do so. There is also despair from those comments in that they are appalled that the level of poverty is so high in this day and age. However, we at With Kids continually work with people effected with poverty in the East End of Glasgow and are thankful for documentaries such Poor Kids, for highlighting the seriousness of the issues. Please visit our website, blog or facebook page to find out more about we do.

We would love to hear your thought and also would urge you to watch the documentary. Please let us know what your opinions are or even if you have any questions for us and what we do at With Kids. Visit our facebook page to share your views and find out more.

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Elaine C. Smith - With Kids Links families of the East End together..

In this final part of two videos, Elaine talks passionately about the East End, and how it is home to very creative, talented and successful public figures. She then goes on to give us her advice to the kids if they want to achieve their goals. Work hard, be creative and be involved.

As the interviews goes on, Elaine talks about how there wasn't an organisation like With Kids when she was growing up, and how they could have benefited many of the families in Glasgow's East End. Towards the end of the interview we begin to discuss how With Kids Links families of the East End together, and their is a strong sense of community there.

Finally Elaine finishes off by talking about how the scottish people never let you forget where you came from, and how important it is to remember where you came from, but for Elaine, it would take a lot more to make her forget where she was born and raised, as she still lives in the East End today.

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Elaine C. Smith - Early intervention is essential to the children..

We are delighted to announce that Elaine C. Smith has agreed to come on board as a With Kids Ambassador.

Like many of our other ambassadors, Elaine was born and raised in the East End of Glasgow, and no matter how successful she has been in her career, she has never forgot where she came from and still calls Glasgow's east end home.

In this part one of two videos, Elaine explains how she admires the work that With Kids do, with not only supporting the kids in poverty stricken areas, but helping the Parents also. Elaine then talks about how she loves living in the east end, as it keeps her down to earth and keeps her aware that there are still people who are living in abject poverty.

Although Elaine admitted the east end is not the easiest place to live, that's what she loves about it, and the fact that her own children are growing up aware of their surroundings and know that there are less fortunate than them.

Elaine then goes on to talk about how the East End never had an organisation like With Kids when she was growing up, how their services could have changed many families' lives and how With Kids' early intervention is essential to the children of the East End. 

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Jim Lambie talks about his tough childhood in a deprived scheme

Jim Lambie, contemporary visual artist, has agreed to become a With Kids Ambassador. In this part one of three videos, Jim talks to us about his tough childhood in a deprived area, and the tough choices he had to make when growing up.

“I am delighted to be an Ambassador for With Kids.  It’s a fantastic charity based in the east end of Glasgow”

Having grown up in a deprived scheme, Jim knows the difficulties that most children in this position will face, so he tells us his story in a series of three videos, to inspire children not to give up and to follow their dreams. 

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