Teaching young people about positive
self-esteem, relationships + sexual health.
How it all started
How it all started
LVA started around a kitchen table. Our founders, Kayleigh & Sue, were friends through their mother and baby groups and one day they started discussing the importance of RSE and the mounting need for there to be dedicated provision for our young people in Richmond…. read more
Where we are now
Where we are now
We are currently working with 17 school communities across 4 London boroughs. On average, since 2018, we deliver between 300 and 400 RSE workshops per academic year. During the academic year of 2020-21 due to the pandemic we delivered 255 workshops (on account of school closures)… read more
Where we are going
Where we are going
We are continuing with our RSE workshops in all our current schools and will be expanding into other Boroughs where the demand is the greatest. Due to current government guidelines we are developing a teacher training programme in collaboration with schools… read more
When the world shut down
When the world shut down
Due to the pandemic and the lockdown that ensued in March 2020, schools in England were closed, with the exception of key worker children and those who were not able to stay at home. This prompted us to re-think our entire strategy…. read more
How it all started
LVA started around a kitchen table. Our founders, Kayleigh & Sue, were friends through their mother and baby groups and one day they started discussing the importance of RSE and the mounting need for there to be dedicated provision for our young people in Richmond - Both Kayleigh and Sue had previous experience of delivering RSE – so that conversation ended with both of them saying ‘what if…?’ Fast forward a few months (and quite a few prayerful conversations) and LVA became a reality! On October 6th 2016 (Kayleigh’s 30th b’day) we had our charity number, another educator (Lydia), a board of trustees and two schools who wanted us to support their RSE program. During LVA’s first year of operation we expanded from 2 school bookings to working with 6 schools by 2017!
Where we are now
We are currently working with 17 school communities across 4 London boroughs. On average, since 2018, we deliver between 300 and 400 RSE workshops per academic year. During the academic year of 2020-21 due to the pandemic we delivered 255 workshops (on account of school closures). During 2020 we also took on 2 new members of staff to help with the increasing demand.
Through our workshops we recognised a need for more tailored work for young people who need a little extra time and attention, so we established our small groups. Since 2018 we have delivered around 30 small groups covering topics such as, CSE, toxic masculinity, self-harm support, self-esteem and emotional well-being along with other tailored programs to fit the needs of the students who are referred to us.
Towards the end of 2018 we found that schools were requesting more one to one work for their most vulnerable students, therefor we started informally mentoring young people, creating a safe space for them to be heard and supported. Since then, we have mentored 70 students in 6 of our schools. We are currently experiencing a high demand for mentoring spaces in our schools.
Our community events are becoming an integral part of LVA’s vision and mission. We do these through parent and fundraising events bringing communities together. Our parent events focus on empowering parents to navigate the teenage years, knowing they are not alone in supporting their children through the formative years. We have run 6 parent events. Our fundraising events are about community and fun across all generations.
Where we are going
We are continuing with our RSE workshops in all our current schools and will be expanding into other Boroughs where the demand is the greatest. Due to current government guidelines we are developing a teacher training programme in collaboration with schools.
We continually update the content of our small group material to ensure they meet our students current social and cultural context.
We are becoming a trauma informed organisation. Through this training we have been able to develop our Therapeutic Mentoring programme. We launch early in 2022 with a project manager overseeing its growth and effectiveness as we meet the needs of the schools and young people, we currently work alongside with a view to expanding the program nationwide over the coming years.
With our parent community building on from the talks we plan to facilitate, train and empower parents to set up support groups in their local communities and networks.
We have a vision for bridging the gap between the work we do in schools with young people and our work in the community by creating LVA themed youth spaces. With a view of empowering young people to take up leadership responsibly and creating job opportunities for those who have come through the programme. We are pioneering this in Autumn 2021.
When the world shut down
Due to the pandemic and the lockdown that ensued in March 2020, schools in England were closed, with the exception of key worker children and those who were not able to stay at home. This prompted us to re-think our entire strategy, as nothing mattered more to us as an organisation than ensuring we could support as many young people as we could - during what would be unprecedented times for them. Which we now know has had an immense impact on their social, emotional, mental and physical well-being. During the first lockdown our immediate response was to meet the need of our young people by hand delivering a care package through our referral system with our local networks.
We hand delivered (between 3 of us) 356 ‘Together Apart’ emotional well-being care parcels. Which included a variety of treats as well as a ‘How To’ emotional well-being booklet with information and coping strategies to support young people on and off line, whilst being confined to their homes. Following on from that we then quickly developed ways to reach young people online through a series of online PSHE Lessons on emotional well-being that we made available to the schools we work with free of charge. As the country started to realise that our lockdown wasn’t ending anytime soon, we re-grouped and re-designed our small groups to be delivered via Zoom. Two schools took this offering up and we supported 12 young people over 6 weeks in this way. During the summer term when schools partly re-opened to certain year groups, we were invited to deliver RSE through a mixture of ‘in person’ and ‘live lessons’. One of the things that arose from that was the need to provide parents with more RSE support at home, as their young people had missed out on statutory RSE work through lockdown. We put our heads together again and developed our ‘Parent Pack’ which equipped and empowered parents to tackle the ‘conversations that matter’ with knowledge and confidence. This is available to buy as a book or through our website as a free resources. We went on to host an online webinar for parents to discuss the contents of the book and delve into the topics further.
As schools started to reopen, we knew we had to create a space for young people to reflect, learn and grow from the ordeal they had been through, so we created a program of 4 workshops with a sole focus on emotional well-being and in just one term we delivered 88 of these workshops to schools. The pandemic has impacted all of us, but one of thing we saw as an organisation is that the need for young people to be loved, valued and equipped is more important now than it ever has been. We feel honoured and privileged to have been able to serve our young people during this time and we will continue to do so as long as we are able!
