Facilitator Spotlight: Rachel Marshall
Kids Matter met with Rachel Marshall, Family Support Manager at Imagine If in Liverpool, to chat about working together to see every child in need raised in a strong family.
Tell us about your journey with Kids Matter so far?
My job is Family Support Manager for our Family Matters project at Imagine If, the aim of which is to support families through various partnerships. One of the organisations we partner with is Safe Families, which has had a really fantastic impact on families, inspiring us to want to do something else with those families, and with the parents and carers. So, when Kids Matter came across our radar, we thought it could be another cog in the support wheel – and Imagine If has therefore been working in partnership with Kids Matter since 2022.
We host a member of the Kids Matter team in our building – the lovely Lynne, North West Engagement Manager, sits in a desk adjacent to mine. Lynne works here a day or two a week and is very much part of the fabric of what we do here at Imagine If. This has enabled us to collaborate well together, and Lynne has been able to connect with all sorts of people from different churches. She’s also networked brilliantly with schools in the region to develop other Kids Matter programmes.
Here at Imagine If we’ve already run two Kids Matter programmes. All of the people who attended the first programme had already received Safe Families support, which provided a natural transition into Kids Matter. It worked really, really, well and the parents/carers formed a really brilliant group who’d already had individualised support (in the community and with Imagine If and Safe Families) but also connected as a group with Kids Matter – and are still connected a couple of years later.
What have been the highlights of the programmes you’ve run so far?
There’ve been a lot of highlights, but one thing stands out for me. One of the mums who attended the programme was visually impaired, and extremely isolated, and wouldn’t really contribute to any of the sessions by openly sharing about anything. Then during one session, people were opening up more about how hard they found it being a parent/carer and the pressures that they were under. Different people were contributing and sharing some of their stories, and then about halfway through that session, the mum said that she couldn’t believe that other people felt the way that she felt; that it wasn’t just her feeling isolated, sometimes lonely, sometimes struggling, sometimes not quite knowing what to do next when looking after the kids. She shared some of her story and felt so validated and encouraged – and then there was a release of emotion for her and the group, which gathered around her, not physically but emotionally, and comforted her. And there was a bit of hugging and care for her. It was a lovely moment and from there on in, she was a vocal member of the group.
Is there anything you did differently to accommodate the mum who was visually impaired?
It’s important to mention that we didn’t do anything to single her out in the group or to highlight the fact that she couldn’t read the material. She did have a volunteer that came with her to support her to literally walk into the building, so people could observe that, and eventually she started to share bits about her visual impairment. In terms of the booklets we use in the programme, our facilitator was just brilliant at unpacking things and sharing things. She would put in extra effort to describe maybe an image that was in the booklets, or she would just read some stuff out. This enabled the mum to listen to everything that was being said and take it in.
What would you say to other churches and organisations that are thinking about partnering with Kids Matter?
I’d say go for it! I’ve done all sorts of parenting programmes over the years. It’s been part of my job role for a long time, and I really like the material – it’s really sound. I love that the ethos of the programme is that you don’t have a facilitator stood at the front as a parenting expert. It’s much more collaborative (sat round a table with a coffee and nice cake) and real, and down to earth. It’s really important to input as much as we can into families and into family life because parenting is hard.
I have to say, every single time we run a programme, I learn something new for myself – and I’ve got older teenagers! The more we can give and support families and strengthen them; I just think the Kingdom of God and the gospel in action. It just shows how much we care for families, whether they join church or not – that’s fine.
Although Kids Matter’s programme is for all parents (whether they have a faith or not), has the programme helped people connect with the church in any way?
Yes, because people’s journey into feeling like they’re part of a church can happen in all sorts of ways. In our context, we have our church and then we have the charity base within our church, and I think what the programme has done, is reinforce, to the people who join the programme, that the door is always open and that they can come and talk to us about anything. It has led to more openness and more of a sense that they are part of our community, and they might not come to church every week and that’s OK. It’s about them knowing that they’re as much part of what we do as someone who’s a regular attender. And so, for me, it’s that sense of community.
There is one particular mum who has brought her children to different events that the church has hosted. Her children have got quite a lot of additional needs, and by coming along, she was able to meet with our kids work pastor who offered her more support and reassurance that her children are welcome and that they could come to anything that that we do. And she has done that. She’s also given back in a creative way in terms of a small business that she runs and things that she’s offered to us when we’ve run family events. This is an example of how, through the programme, the concept of church community has opened us up more into the creative connections that people can have with church and with the Kingdom of God, and I really like that.
Find out more about Imagine If at Imagineiftrust.org and learn more about Kids Matter’s parenting programmes here.