Our story
Deeply affected by her personal experience as a new young mum, as well as her professional experience as a Clinical Psychologist, Eli Gardner saw the growing impact of poverty on children and families, and was compelled to offer support.
Kids Matter was born from my personal experience of really struggling as a young mum, combined with my professional experience as a Clinical Psychologist, where I repeatedly saw the growing need in society.
With a rise in children under 15 being referred for mental health problems and fast dwindling resources to meet the need, particularly prevalent in the area of early intervention and especially for those children raised in financial adversity, I felt a heightened sense of alarm.
‘Parenting is hard’
Parenting is hard. As a mum of three I would go so far as to say it is quite possibly the hardest thing I have ever had to contend with, in spite of my rigorous Child Psychology training and more than adequate social and economic support. Nothing and no one, it seems, can prepare you for the physical and emotional onslaught that tiny humans can inflict on parents: the utter exhaustion and the multiple-collateral mini-impacts on your body, self-esteem, confidence, relationships and time.
The struggles of both parenting and poverty collided in a local playground one day after a particularly bad morning with my own toddler. As I pushed my son on the swing, as much a distraction for myself as for him, I started chatting to a young mum from a local housing estate who had a child of a similar age. She was a single mum, had him at 16 and was living on the 7th floor in a very toxic environment. Life was hard.
The need became clear
As the morning progressed, she grew increasingly frustrated with her toddler until things escalated to the point where she bit his arm by way of disciplining him. For me, that was a pivotal moment. I knew well that overwhelming sense of frustration but I did have others I could turn to in order to keep my child safe; she didn’t.
It was in this moment that I realised we need to reach mums, dads and carers like her in a way that doesn’t feel judgemental or like she is being ‘taught’ how to parent, and to consider what type of support would be manageable for her in terms of getting there or affording it.
I then went on the hunt for examples of who was doing this well outside of my clinic. I came across Marika, an experienced family worker, who was working with families on a local estate. I went along to see how she did it and what I saw formed the template of how we do everything at Kids Matter.
Kids Matter was born
Marika knew the mums and dads by name, she threw a tablecloth over a table, put a big pot of tea and plate of cakes in the middle, and we sat and ate, chatted and discussed the material from the course; helping one another and sharing insights.
From there, the rest is history: we adapted The Parenting Children Course so that it was more accessible to families with lower income and lower support. We developed a model that trains and equips local facilitators, who are parents themselves, from local churches to deliver our version around tea and cake. Peer-to-peer support, over time, using effective resources.
Our dream is that community networks of local churches, charities, schools and prisons would be key deliverers of that effective support: offering both useful parenting tools for families to grab hold of, and staying alongside them as they grapple with those tools, offering genuine community and relationship. We believe it is possible to see children thrive even in difficult circumstances, if they have strong families, and we believe we have something to offer in terms of putting effective and accessible parenting programmes into the hands of communities to help build those strong families.
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Meet the team
We have a wonderful team of brilliant people committed to transforming society and a group of top-notch trustees who support us every step of the way.
Accreditations
We take our work seriously and we’re passionate about seeing long-term change. As part of that, we are committed to rigorous evaluation of the efficacy of all we do.
Impact
By evaluating our impact, we are able to assess the effectiveness of our programmes to ensure life-changing support for children impacted by poverty in our communities.