HOPE PROJECT

Helping Other People Excel
King’s Church, Portsmouth

Someone once said that children don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care! Ideally, the HOPE project believes children should know a number of adults who do care and can be a positive and stabilizing influence on their lives, a listening ear to go to when needed and generally a positive role model.

The HOPE project is run by The King’s Church, Portsmouth and is headed up by Gareth Benton. The King’s Church believes in being a positive influence in its community, constantly looking for ways to serve.

Having a knowledge of the schools, children and their families can promote early intervention where problems have been identified either with home or school life. Living in the inner city can be tough and the HOPE project seeks to help children and families in the Portsea and Somerstown areas through the power of positive relationships with children and their families.

The HOPE project seeks to:
	Make children more self aware, encouraging a feel good factor about themselves and those around them
	Give children life skills to deal with tension, anger, disappointment and conflict
	Work alongside families informally, intervening early, and where necessary promoting other services through the power of association

The HOPE project works alongside schools in the Portsea and Somerstown areas and has been set up to provide classroom support, teaching lessons from the PSHE and Citizenship syllabus.

The HOPE project ensures positive role models are available to spend time with children where the Learning Mentors and Head Teacher feel it would be beneficial, especially those children where relationships have already been established.

The project also helps to organise activities for small numbers of children responding to poor, excellent and improving behaviour and to refer children to other existing projects where they may be more suitable to deal with identified needs.

An excellent example of the peer mediation scheme was reported in this recent "Good News Story" from Gareth:-

"It's been exciting to see how the children have embraced the peer mediation scheme and the scheme working alongside the school, Cottage Grove has seen a significant reduction in behavioural incidents in the school.  There were 239 less incidents following the launch of the peer mediation scheme, with 100 less incidents in the playground and 84 less in the classroom, which shows how the scheme has made a significant difference to the behaviour of the children in the school."

For more information on the HOPE project please contact:-

Gareth Benton

023 9279 3545