Public Health England (PHE) Board’s meeting in June 2016 took place not in London, not in a Board Room – the Board met in Gloucester with some amazing people at Kingfisher Treasure Seekers. There work is best explained in their own words. I am very pleased that Katie has written this blog on behalf of the Kingfishers team.
Kingfisher Treasure Seekers provides support to the whole community using around 30 different activities, 14 members of staff and around 200 volunteers. We are passionate about enabling people to become ‘the best versions of themselves’ and to do this we have a unique model of providing ‘wrap around’ services.
Adam’ was just 16 years old. Instead of a future full of hope and possibilities, Adam’s future looked rather different. Adam was a painfully shy, mildly autistic boy, who lost a sibling as a child. He had refused to go to school, was in danger of failing all his exams and being labelled a truant. The local education welfare officer decided to try something different with Adam. Instead of writing off his chances, they sent him to Kingfisher Treasure Seekers for a couple of days a week to volunteer. This would be marked as an attendance at an educational activity. It took months for Adam to say more than a few words, but fast forward 2 years and Adam is just completing a course at college, is more confident and has that future full of hope and possibilities.
‘Jeff’ was a 78 year old man who had lost his wife several years earlier. On first meeting, Jeff appeared a bitter, lonely, depressed old man. Slowly Jeff started getting involved and realised he was no longer alone. He made new friends and started the process of rebuilding his life. Fast forward and Jeff is now leading activities for older people and encouraging those in the same position as himself.
Usually these very different people with very different life stories and life experiences would be supported by very different organisations. However, both these individuals we supported in their journeys by Kingfisher Treasure Seekers.
We believe that everyone, regardless of age, disability, past choices, have the same basic needs: to belong, to be valued and to contribute. We have seen through the 1500-2000 people a week we work with, that fulfilling these basic needs can have hugely positive outcomes for individuals. For example: we see people’s mental and emotional health improve; see people looking after their physical health better; see people build resilience so they are not as easily pushed into crisis; see people develop new and healthy social network; see people discover and develop new skills; see people grow in confidence; see people find and retain employment or volunteering opportunities and much more.
Our model recognises that each person is unique and will therefore have a unique journey as individual as DNA. We see that there are four building blocks to seeing people able to become the best versions of themselves: Outreach, soft skill development, specialised support and contribution.
These four building blocks weaved through the range of activities we run enable us to offer a bespoke path for each individual, but with the same goal - becoming the best version of themselves.
To find out more about Kingfisher Treasure Seekers visit:
www.kftseekers.org.uk or contact us at info@kftseekers.org.uk or call us on 01452 228489
