Free to Be Kids

Flourish clubs are afterschool or weekend groups based around themes of nature, art, food or animals that are designed to help young people be creative, explore feelings and emotions and to learn new skills. 

 

Each club is based around key activities which could range from therapeutic cooking (and eating together!), art workshops, model making, drama and a whole host of others. We use the idea of sharing the activity with the children, doing it alongside them and often challenging them to take the lead, to aid their confidence and self-expression, allowing our specially trained volunteers to pick up on themes around young people's emotional presentation and then work with these indirectly through future group activites.

 

The groups are facilitated by small teams of experienced, caring and skilled volunteers. Typically, each club runs over the course of approximately a school term, and is offered to a small, carefully matched group of children or young people. Different groups are developed for different ages of young people.

 

Over time, and with supported, positive affirmation from our volunteers, children are able to develop their social skills, self-esteem, form positive friendships and grow in confidence. By having a small team of responsive and emotionally literate adults to build relationships with, children feel welcomed, listened to and valued. Some begin to feel safe enough to choose to explore and share  feelings about their worlds beyond the club.

 

As well as being valuable settings for work around social relations some flourish clubs focus on life skill activities, such as healthy eating or cooking on a budget, as secondary aims.

 

Finally because of the manageable group sizes of 6-10 and the same children being invited back consistently for the duration of the group, flourish clubs create great opportunities for children to develop lasting new friendships, to look forward to the next week's club and most importantly, to have a brilliantly fun time.