Safeguarding Children Services (SCS) is an award-winning social enterprise which works with children and young people aged 5-19 years old who have been abused or are at risk in Merseyside. Under the careful guidance of its founding Directors, Jaci Quennell and Elaine Allison, SCS has worked with over 200 young people since it was founded in 2005.
It is a service which is desperately needed and has been a lifeline for young people such as Scott:
“I was seventeen when I met Elaine and Jaci and I had been overdosing and self-harming. I had counselling sessions and benefited a lot from these and enjoyed going. I could feel myself improving and feeling better about myself. Now I’m doing some voluntary work for SCS and I’ve joined their Young People’s Panel. I’m on the Business and Technology Education Council (BTEC) course to become a Peer Educator. I’m glad I met the workers at SCS — I wouldn’t be who I am now if I hadn’t met them. I am becoming very successful.”
In 2008, SCS started working with Pilotlight and a team was put together to help SCS focus on financial planning, branding, marketing and business strategy. The Pilotlight team, which includes a BP executive, marketing specialist, risk officer at Reed Elsevier, and entrepreneur, were impressed with the charity’s drive and determination and the plans for future services. The relationship has been a productive one and in December 2008, SCS were delighted to find they had received funding of nearly £1.2 million from Futurebuilders which will enable them to build an eight-bed residential unit for young people who have suffered abuse and harm. The unit will be up and running from July 2009.
Elaine Allison says:
"Pilotlight has given us so much confidence…it was a very safe environment where we could talk honestly. The level of expertise was very high and we got the help we needed to go forward in developing a social enterprise. Our Pilotlighters are brilliant and it’s a wonderful process.”
The new residential unit will pioneer the use of “social pedagogy” — an approach used in Europe that uses only qualified graduates to deliver services.
Jaci Quennell explains:
“At the moment, the most vulnerable children (those who are in care) are looked after by the least qualified and trained staff. We want to change all that by investing in the quality of staff that we employ — Pilotlight have given us the confidence to innovate and this will benefit children and young people for years to come. As the Department for Children, Schools, and Families says, we should be caring about, not just for, children and young people.”
Pilotlight would like to thank the SCS team, which includes Pilotlighters Clare Dobie of Marketing Measures; Jean-Baptiste Renard of BP; Andrea Sinclair of Incentr Limited; and Arnout van der Veer from Reed Elsevier, as well as Craig Carey, Project Manager from Pilotlight London.