Kibble Admin

Posted: November 5, 2018

The Paisley Halloween Festival was the grand finale of months of hard work, dedication and artistic talent from Kibble pupils.

On Saturday 27 October the stage was set for a ‘spookacular’ Halloween extravaganza as hundreds of performers took to the streets to entertain local crowds. The procession featured acrobats, dancers, singers and musicians who dressed up in ghoulish costumes to parade through the town.

For 25 Kibble pupils, this was an opportunity to showcase their hugely creative talents. The theme chosen was ‘The Greatest Showman’ and many a long day was spent in the art studio researching, designing and composing a sensational circus themed float. The scale of the brief brought a great team effort across the charity. From the technical teams who ensured the float shone as bright as the performers, to the woodwork that was crafted from rough pencil sketches – everyone had a role to play. At Kibble, we don’t believe in doing anything in half measures – to get fully into character, pupils took part in a circus performance workshop led by Circus Arts Scotland. A fun afternoon was spent hula hooping, feather balancing and learning the technical art of “Devil Sticks”.

The parade was a really positive experience for the young people and the smiles beaming from their faces said it all. This was a real team effort and we would like to thank the events team at Renfrewshire Council for opening up this opportunity, as well as Noel Bridgeman, Director of Bridgeman Arts for his invaluable advice in putting this performance together.

Now that the cobwebs have blown away on this Halloween project, we’ve now cast our sights on the next learning opportunity. The pupils are going to be involved in a cross-generational project with local care homes to learn and share creative skills, songs and to learn more about each generation. Watch this space!

Posted: November 1, 2018

THE national Young Builder of the Year Awards has recognised the achievements of two young people from Paisley at an awards ceremony in the Houses of Parliament, London. Grant Ballantine and Sterling Couture, both trainees at social enterprise KibbleWorks Construction, were commended by judges and awarded the prize of brand new tools and equipment.

Grant attended the awards in London in person. He said:

“I want to thank Mark for putting me forward for the Awards, and for getting the chance to visit London and see the parliament.

“I’ve never been to London before so getting to see the city as well as the awards has been a hugely enjoyable experience. I’ve been learning a lot about working in construction industry and I hope to use what I’ve learned in my future working life.”

Mark Robertson, Depute Head Teacher at Kibble, accompanied Grant to the ceremony. He said:

“The achievements of Grant and Sterling are remarkable and deserve to be recognised in this way.

“They were the only winners from Scotland which I think shows just how incredible their achievement is. Kibble is proud of what they have accomplished, and I am sure that they will go on to have great careers in the building trade.”

KibbleWorks is a group of social enterprises based in McKean Street, Paisley. It offers a range of services to local community such as construction, vehicle mechanics, garden maintenance, landscaping, picture framing, promotional materials and more. The social enterprise business model means that all profits from the business are directly invested into giving local young people training and education opportunities that they might not otherwise be able to access.

Youthbuild UK, the organisation who organise the annual awards, are a charity who promote the achievements of young people who are training for a trade. They support and advise organisations and employers to set up projects, skills training and employment schemes to combat social exclusion.

Posted: October 25, 2018

Kibble Group has started the process of creating a new specialist education centre for primary aged children between five and 12.

The organisation has purchased the former residential care home buildings of Parkhill House and Garpel House and will seek planning permission from Renfrewshire Council for the change in use.

Located on the outskirts of Lochwinnoch, the proposals seek to turn the existing buildings into a small primary campus with residential accommodation for young children who have been affected by adversity in their early years.

Kibble has extensively researched ground-breaking methods of care and education by visiting similar centres across the world over the past three years. The campus will be a safe and comfortable environment for primary aged children in preparation for eventual long-term foster care.

The therapeutic approach to education will allow young people to experience the benefits of outdoor learning alongside National Curriculum based classroom teaching. Natural surroundings create a safe environment for students with special needs, incorporating innovative animal-assisted and nature-based activities. The education centre will eventually accommodate up to 30 pupils.

Jim Gillespie, Chief Executive of Kibble Group, said: “Kibble believes that the right care and education has the potential to transform the lives of young people, no matter their background or circumstances. The proposal for a new specialist centre is entirely guided by that approach, providing a safe and nurturing environment for young people who have experienced severe adversity in their early years.

“The site of this former care home is the ideal, idyllic setting for this type of campus and we’re due to begin speaking with local community organisations about how we can work collaboratively.

“We have begun the process of applying for planning permission to renovate the two buildings, converting them into modern classrooms and residential accommodation. This will allow us to change the use from a retirement home to a state-of-the-art educational facility delivering tailored support for children.”

Based in Paisley and founded in 1859, Kibble Group is a charity and social enterprise which provides an extensive range of services for children who are at risk or have experienced trauma in their early years. It works with young people from the age of five, providing education and care from centres in Largs, Paisley and Garnock Valley.

Further information about the proposals can be viewed at www.kibble.org/early-years

Posted: October 15, 2018

Pupils have been immersed in the exciting world of dance as part of The Close project, run by Scottish Ballet.

The Close is an education project which gives young people, who may not have had the opportunity to engage with classical dance, an enriching cultural experience. For young people affected by adversity, and who have faced difficult experiences, it provides a means of expression, a chance to explore their creativity and develop valuable teamwork skills.

As part of the project, pupils and staff attended a VIP performance of Scottish Ballet’s upcoming big production. After being mesmerised by the performance, pupils had the chance to take part in dance taster workshops at The Tramway, home of the Scottish Ballet. The pupils loved every minute of the experience and one boy aged 13, even performed a dance solo in front of his classmates.

To say the pupils gained a lot from the experience was an understatement. As pupil Robert said about the experience “it calms you down if you’re very stressed, it helps you calm down and think of the dance and if something has gone on you can just forget about it and you’re in the mode, you just totally forget about everything and you just focus on dance all the time”. Class teacher Chris McDonald spoke of the positive changes he saw in the pupils over the course of the project as they developed stronger friendships and learned about teamwork.
Lisa Sinclair, Special Projects Manager at Scottish Ballet has been in touch to thank pupils and staff for their trust and dedication to the project stating “What a wonderful group of artists we had the pleasure of working with”.

We look forward to working with Scottish Ballet in the future to open up incredible life opportunities for the pupils. The partnership is invaluable for Kibble, and we would like to thank them for their ongoing support and commitment.

Posted: October 4, 2018

Challenge Poverty Week is an opportunity to encourage discussion about the realities of poverty, address the causes and confront the stereotypes that exist. At Kibble, we are aware of the circumstances that can lead care leavers into financial difficulty. Our services help to support young people so that they are less likely to be affected by poverty when they move on.

Mental Health and Poverty

Although a complex issue, research has shown that poverty can be both a cause and a consequence of poor mental health. At Kibble we recognise the importance of an all-encompassing healthy body, healthy mind approach and all of our services are supported by psychological and therapeutic input. The majority of young people at Kibble have experienced significant trauma and some have been affected by poverty in their lives, and our trauma-informed practice helps them to work through difficulties. Addressing trauma through psychological support is one of the most important things we can do to help young people go on to lead happy, fulfilling lives after they leave care.

Work Readiness

While mental health is linked to poverty, it is not the only factor that can make care leavers more likely to experience poverty. Research from The Care Leavers Association has shown that some of the biggest concerns for young people leaving care are money and work readiness, two issues that often go hand-in-hand. Without the appropriate skills and experience, it can be tough to secure a job, and trying to do so in an already difficult jobs market can exacerbate the problem. We’re aware that many care leavers don’t feel work ready, which is why through our young workforce development services at KibbleWorks, we support young people to earn while they learn and hopefully find that all important job. KibbleWorks provides young people with practical work experience in a variety of areas such as mechanics, construction, administration and horticulture; the opportunity to gain recognised qualifications; help with literacy and numeracy; and employability support including CV writing, mock interviews and assistance with looking for jobs. As well as giving young people the practical experience and skills they need to be work ready, KibbleWorks also helps them to grow in confidence. For many, KibbleWorks is the first experience of a job they’ve had. It could be the first time they’ve been earning a wage, or the first time they’ve been relied on to be somewhere by a certain time. Knowing they’ve got a job to do and their peers are relying on them helps young people to gain a sense of pride and dedication to work, helping to reduce fears they may have about entering the workforce. This is something they may never have experienced before, especially if through a disrupted childhood they’ve struggled to engage with education. Scottish Government research shows that 27% of care leavers have no formal pathway plan for what to do next, which can lead to unemployment and poverty. KibbleWorks allows young people to learn subjects that interest them, establish what kind of career they want to have, and helps them to set achievable goals to get there. This is turn helps them to move into employment and earn a wage more quickly than if they were to leave care with no work experience, making it less likely that they will experience poverty.

Living Independently

Young people leaving care can find themselves suddenly without support, which can lead to isolation and desperation. Lack of a family support network is a known cause of poverty, and although we can’t replace their family, we aim to offer a loving, caring environment for young people to equip them with the skills and support they need to live independently. Maintaining a home is for many care leavers something they’ve never experienced, which paired with a lack of knowledge of budgeting can lead to issues such as fuel poverty, with young people often going without light or heat. Kibble’s Housing Support Services exist to ensure that young people leaving our care and moving into a tenancy are not suddenly on their own. We help them to begin living independently with the level of support that’s right for them. Young people have access to care at home if it’s required and can continue to use Kibble’s other services such as KibbleWorks and SIS. They can also get in touch with someone from our qualified team 24/7, ensuring that there is always someone for them to turn to if they are finding it challenging in their new tenancy. Things that many of us take for granted can be a struggle for care leavers, like food shopping and budgeting for meals. We offer help with this, for example showing young people how to plan meals for the week to minimise waste and cost.

Challenging Stereotypes

This Challenge Poverty Week, we also want to address some of the stereotypes that affect care experienced young people. While it’s true that care leavers are much less likely to go to university than their non-care experienced peers, we believe this is not a result of ability and that university is not the only path that young people can take to be successful. We aim to instil a sense of possibility in our young people and encourage them to work towards their own goals. While eradicating poverty is a highly complex issue and one that requires commitment across all areas of society, we are striving to improve the lives of our young people so that they are better equipped not to experience poverty when they leave Kibble.

Posted: August 22, 2018

James Gillespie, Chief Executive at Kibble Group, highlights how the charity and social enterprise is leading the way in supporting young people with complex social, emotional and educational needs.

At Kibble, we support children from the age of five right through to young adults, many of whom have experienced significant trauma.

Our services are all integrated and cover a vast range of areas including: residential care, secure care, primary and secondary education, specialist intervention services, intensive fostering services, young workforce development, outreach services, and preventative and rehabilitative community services.

Supporting young people is like a jigsaw –all the different pieces need to join together to complete the picture. It’s a culmination of a lot of factors, from creating a comfortable, safe environment to providing continuity of staff support, ensuring there is structure in a young person’s life, and involving them in decisions that affect them.

At Kibble we adopt a ‘healthy body, healthy mind’ approach and focus on the overall wellbeing of the young people we support. This can cover everything from cooking healthy meals to encouraging young people to be active or take part in creative activities with others, and offering therapeutic interventions. We also apply a model of trauma-informed care which looks at different aspects of a person’s life, including physical, psychological and emotional safety and healing. It’s important that the young people who come to Kibble know they’ve got a place where they are safe and supported by people who love and care for them.

It is also really important that the young people we support feel empowered and confident about their future prospects after they move on from Kibble, and our social enterprise model is one way we can achieve this.

KibbleWorks, the collective name for Kibble Group’s social enterprises, was established in 2005. Our social enterprise model enables us to offer employment opportunities and training for the young people we support (aged 15+). It also helps to ease the transition from education into the world of work. We provide work-based learning combined with the chance to study for qualifications.

Ultimately, we want to improve a young person’s chance of getting that all-important job, which could help prevent them from facing a ‘cliff edge’, or falling further behind their non-care experienced peers.

Our young workforce development programmes are based on labour market intelligence, enusuring young people are undertaking work-based learning that’s relevant to the current jobs market.

There are many positive features of operating as a social enterprise. For Kibble, the biggest positive is the fact that any surpluses are reinvested for the social good, and the young people we support see the benefit.

While we focus on equiping young people with the skills to move forward and take the opportunities that life offers them, our door is always open if they need to get in contact, for whatever reason.

We regularly have return visits from former Kibble young people who come back to share their stories with those we are currently supporting. Their experiences and the messages they convey are powerful and young people can often relate to their stories. Their success highlights that despite what has happened in the past there are opportunities for the future.

In a way, Kibble exists not to exist. In an ideal world young people would no longer need our help.Sadly, the reality is that’s not likely to happen in the foreseeable future. The ideal scenario for us would be a greater focus on earlier interventions to ensure those at-risk don’t experience trauma in the first instance. Until a time when that reality exists, having a strong understanding of trauma and how to deliver trauma-informed care allows us to tackle the root cause of problems instead of simply treating the symptoms. We understand that organisations like ours have a big role to play in further reducing the demand for intensive interventions such as secure care placements.

From prevention work and trauma-informed support to participative methodologies, peer support and young workforce development – we work hard to support a future where all at-risk children and young people can go on to live happy and healthy lives. Kibble may have been established 177 years ago, but we’re always looking for innovative solutions that will really work for Scotland’s young people. They deserve nothing less than the best.

James Gillespie is Chief Executive at Kibble Group.

What Kibble say about membership:

“Being part of the Children in Scotland network offers an excellent opportunity to connect with like-minded organisations. It’s a great platform for sharing information and good practice, and learning about the latest developments. The work of Children in Scotland has had a positive impact on the lives of many young people and Kibble Group is delighted to offer its support.” – James Gillespie

This article first appeared in Issue 187 (Aug – Sept 2018) of Children in Scotland Magazine

Posted: July 10, 2018

The artistic and creative achievements of young people at Kibble were celebrated at a glamourous awards ceremony this week. Friends, family and former pupils were invited along to the campus in Paisley to the first ever ‘Kibble Oskars’, or KOskars.

Young people received awards for their roles in cultural events such as the RSNO Big Takeover, Care 2 Create celebration, the SPREE Festival and much more. Guests were treated to mocktails and music as well as an exhibition of some of the work that pupils have made in the past year.

A special award was given to Lisa Hill, a young person who participates in the Kibble Singing Group. She spent time visiting local Care Homes and Sheltered Housing to entertain elderly residents.

Stanely Park Care Home in Paisley is one of the venues the singers visit regularly. Activities Co-ordinator Anna-Maria Smith and Betty McKim were at the ceremony and got the chance to thank Lisa for all the times she has visited the care home.

Anna-Maria said:

“When kids come into home they bring it alive. Some of our quieter residents change from being silent to singing along and joining in.

“We always look forward to the visits of the singers and I want to say thanks to Lisa and everyone at Kibble for taking the time to make everybody’s day.”

Jim Gillespie, Chief Executive of Kibble Group, said:

“From playing guitar with Paolo Nutini to working with the National Orchestra, the levels of achievement from our young people this year is incredible. Their hard work and that of our team at Kibble means that we can provide opportunities for life changing experiences.

“I am also very proud of young people like Lisa for sharing her singing talents with older people in Paisley. She has gone above and beyond bringing them a great deal of joy and I am glad that some of the local residents could join us in celebrating her achievements.”

Posted: June 13, 2018

Women and girls from Kibble were marching in Edinburgh this Sunday (10 June) to mark 100 years since women were first given the vote. They will be joining thousands of others from across the country with events in Belfast, Cardiff and London walking together to mark the historic occasion.

The events are being organised by PROCESSIONS, an organisation set up by the UK Government to commemorate important cultural events during the centenary of the First World War. Women participating in the march have been asked to create their own banners that will be used for the march itself. Staff and young people at Kibble have been working hard over the past few weeks to produce a banner that will be on display.

Jennifer Sloan from Kibble’s Art Department said:

“I want to thank everyone who has been participating in helping to make the banner. This project is an important reminder of the fight that women had just to get the right to vote and I know that some of the young people have been learning about the Suffragettes for the very first time.

“We are taking a group of the young people through to experience the march itself and I know that they are really excited about it. It is important to never forget how these women fought so hard to build a fairer and more equal society.”

In 1918, the Representation of the People Act gave the first British women the right to vote and stand for public office. The Act followed a sustained campaign by Suffragettes and Suffragists who fought for equality for women. Women attending marches across the UK will be asked to wear either green, white or violet, the traditional colours of the suffragette movement.

Posted: June 7, 2018

Maureen Watt, MSP heard from the future of the country’s mental health care programme for under 26-year-olds as she visited Kibble this week. The Minister for Mental Health spent the morning hearing from staff and residents at the Paisley campus.

One of the Scottish Government’s themes for the Year of the Young People is Health and Wellbeing with the aim that youngsters understand the importance of mental health and resilience.

Kibble has committed to a range of activity over the course of the year to support the Minister’s strategy, while giving a voice to young people and reducing stigmas around mental health.

Projects include partnerships with the NHS and LA to support early identification of mental health issues as well as work with Who Cares? Scotland to ensure all young people are aware of their rights.

The Minister learned more about each of the care provider’s initiatives during her tour of the premises, which included a visit to the Safe Centre where young people, some with mental health issues, receive individual treatment plans enhanced by new and innovative interventions.

The care provider, which is supported by its Specialist Intervention Services (SIS) team to provide psychological and therapeutic input, works with children and families from the age of five across a range of residential and day placement services.

Jim Gillespie, Chief Executive at Kibble, said: “It was an honour to welcome the Minister to our site and shine a light on the work that is done day to day in support of mental health.

“We are working with numerous partners in aid of the wellbeing of under 26-year olds, from early intervention at a young age and throughout the years into adulthood.

“Our Safe Centre is an instrumental part of giving young people the care in which they need, with the support from the Minister a tremendous helpful in continuing to develop the services we offer.

“During the Year of the Young People it is vital that we are taking the steps to ensure that each and every child has readily available help, feels comfortable enough to ask for support and has a platform to speak and be heard.”

Mental Health Minister Maureen Watt said: “The Year of Young People 2018 is about giving young people a stronger voice. We have been told very clearly that they want greater attention given to mental health and wellbeing, and I am delighted to see how staff at Kibble are also adopting this kind of approach.

“More and more people are recognising the importance of caring for our mental health as we would our physical health, and we want everyone to have access to the support they need. Focusing on prevention and early intervention is a key part of that, and I look forward to hearing how Kibble’s work will help people to manage their own mental wellbeing.”

Posted: May 24, 2018

A VIDEO warning about the dangers of cyber stalking has been given a Divisional Commander’s Award by Renfrewshire Police. The film was produced by young people from Kibble Group and was given the recognition at an awards ceremony on their Paisley campus by Chief Superintendent Gordon Crossan.

Young people and staff at Kibble spent months working on the project named ‘Have you heard about Chloe?’ to highlight the risks and vulnerabilities young people face when using social media. The final cut is now being used as a resource by Police Scotland across Renfrewshire schools.

Executive Director at Kibble Group Eileen Cummings said:

“It is a great honour to welcome Chief Superintendent Crossan and Police Scotland to our campus for this prize giving. This is yet another example of our strong partnership working with other organisations.

“I know the young people worked incredibly hard to produce a high quality film on such a serious subject. The young people I have spoken to have taken a lot of pride in knowing that their work is being shared with other schools and that they have played their own part in warning others about the dangers of cyber stalking.”

Chief Superintendent Gordon Crossan said:

“The awards ceremony represents an excellent opportunity to acknowledge some of the outstanding work and contributions made by local Police Officers, partners and local people within the communities of Renfrewshire and Inverclyde.

“Individuals and groups are being recognised for their part in improving the safety and wellbeing of the people, families and communities living, working and commuting through both Renfrewshire and Inverclyde.”