Affluence belies needs

    Gerrards Cross is a picturesque village in a leafy corner of south
    Buckinghamshire. Exclusive boutiques line the village’s high street
    and Range Rovers deliver blazer-clad children to its numerous prep
    schools.

    It is hardly surprising that Gerrards Cross has the lowest level of
    child deprivation and poverty in England. Save the Children’s
    report says just 0.5 per cent of children there are classified as
    living in poverty.

    Buckinghamshire has a population of 479,000, of whom 7,000 live in
    Gerrards Cross. About 21 per cent of the county’s residents are
    under 17. There are few people from ethnic minorities living in the
    county.

    Buckinghamshire’s children and families service receives about
    2,800 referrals a year, half of which need an assessment. As at
    last April, the one-star social services department had 240
    looked-after children, 125 foster carers and supported 151 young
    care leavers. There were 131 children on Buckinghamshire’s child
    protection register at 31 August this year. The county has 1,940
    children classified in need. Of the four of these who live in
    Gerrards Cross, three have disabilities.

    Clearly, compared with parts of the Wirral, some 200 miles away,
    the quality of life for most south Buckinghamshire children is
    vastly superior. But what is it like for children living in the
    villages there? What sort of problems do they and their families
    face? And what services do the voluntary sector and the council
    provide?

    The charity Home-Start offers three hours of weekly support to
    parents with children under school age and confronts problems
    ranging from post-natal depression to dealing with triplets.

    Sue Prebble, joint organiser of Home-Start for the Wycombe district
    for eight years, estimates that just over half of the 61 clients
    who the charity’s 38 volunteers helped in the year to March 2002
    live on benefits. “We deal with all the usual family problems but
    they are compounded by poverty,” she says. “In places like the
    Wirral everyone is in the same boat but it’s not like that
    here.”

    Prebble cites a lack of suitable shops and affordable transport as
    a major problem for poorer families. “If a family receives milk
    tokens there is nowhere they can use them except in the centre of
    High Wycombe and the bus fare is too expensive.”

    Targeting parents and their children with the highest needs in
    south Buckinghamshire is challenging, says Pam Rolfe, a support and
    development worker at the charity, Parents as First Teachers.

    Based in the Francis Edmonds school in the pretty village of Lane
    End, Rolfe provides monthly hour-long child development support to
    19 families with very young children. Her colleague, Helen Beeson,
    works with 10 families locally. Rolfe says: “Families with high
    needs can sometimes be harder for us to visit because they seem to
    have very busy lives.”

    She says getting parents to think about their child’s needs can be
    tough. “Our philosophy is that parents want what’s best for their
    child. This is a pair of Nike trainers for some and a solid
    education for others.”

    One problem that disabled children face in south Buckinghamshire is
    a shortage of volunteer respite carers. Janet Vale, a social worker
    with the children with disabilities team’s Take a Break service, is
    responsible for recruiting and assessing volunteer respite carers
    and works with 16 carers and eight befrienders.

    She says Take a Break relies on volunteers with professional
    experience of children with disabilities to give their families
    some much needed time out.

    Kathy Forbes, Buckinghamshire’s children with disabilities service
    manager, says that finding suitable volunteers is difficult because
    the service is competing against charities that also want
    volunteers. “People can be threatened by the thoroughness of our
    vetting process,” she says.

    Catherine Wilson is the area manager of the South Buckinghamshire
    youth team, which is the only statutory service provided to
    children and young people living in Gerrards Cross. She oversees
    the youth club, housed in a wooden hut next to the village’s white
    stone memorial centre. She runs a club for eight to 12 year olds on
    Monday evenings, one for 13 to 19 year olds on Tuesdays and one for
    young people with learning difficulties on Wednesdays.

    Wilson says different children use the junior and senior clubs.
    Those from more affluent backgrounds attend the junior club while
    young people from the local housing estate go to the senior club.
    “Middle class kids don’t come to the senior club because they see
    the kids there as being different from them,” she says.

    Young people in Gerrards Cross are also up against the village’s
    conservative nature, says Wilson. “Young people hanging out in the
    streets are seen as threatening and any graffiti or litter is a
    huge issue,” she says. “People in Gerrards Cross see it as ‘young
    people creating havoc’.”

    To tackle antisocial behaviour in south Buckinghamshire, the youth
    service established a partnership with the police to develop
    voluntary acceptable behaviour contracts. In its first year, 26
    young people signed the six-month contracts.

    In September 2000 Buckinghamshire’s children’s service and
    Buckinghamshire NHS Mental Health Trust launched a project to
    support 11 to 17 year olds and their families or carers at risk of
    breakdown. In its first year the project helped 181 young people
    with a range of problems.

    Mel Nash, deputy manager of the multi-agency rapid response
    service, says: “We are not perceived as the local authority and
    that helps us offer a more flexible service. Young people don’t
    want the stigma attached to going to those places for help.”

    More from Community Care

    Comments are closed.