Recent Developments

One of the most significant aspects to report is that LEAF has finally acquired the tenancy of St Katherines. A service of dedication to the building and to the work of Leaf was held on the 10th October. The Dean of Hereford Cathedral who has long been an avid advocate of LEAF returned to the charity’s foundational scripture in her homily when she spoke of Jesus’ desire to see unity across the churches so that “so that the world may believe” (John 17:21). There is little doubt that LEAF has grown exponentially in recent years and yet it was good to be reminded of the truth that this move of God was born out of a fresh understanding of our need to work together as churches and continues to be built on our praying together which of course we do every Thursday through the 7/12/7 initiative.

 

The building is now being used primarily as offices but will increasingly become the central hub for the Youth work and other outreach activities. The equipment for the Youth Hub (owned by another local charity, LYAS) has been moved from storage into St Katherines and the first youth club was held on the 8th October. We are singularly excited about the many opportunities that will open up now we have our own purposed building.

 

As LEAF grows in scope, we have felt the need to employ people to facilitate this. Some of these relate to administrative tasks that underpin and drive all the work we are seeking to undertake. Martyn Kyle has been appointed as Funding and Processes Manager and works two days a week and Tara Campbell will work as a PA for the CEO. Alongside these appointments we are continuing to expand the team who work out in the community. Sloe Oppong was appointed as LEAF’s full time youth worker before the summer and shortly after Jonathan Catley was employed to run the Alternative Provision programme one day a week in the primary school. We have also increased the hours of our Listening and Guidance/Chaplain and those of Lydia Williamson, the Family Worker at the school.

 

We continue to attract interest both from those in the community who wish to support or partner with the work we are undertaking. On 3rd October Peter (Chair of Trustees) and Tony met with Public Health and Healthwatch to discuss many of our projects and initial thoughts seem to indicate that they would be keen to support us going forward. Tony is building good working relationships with John Masefield school. This means that the mentoring work which has begun in the Primary school may well now continue through into the Secondary school providing a vital emotional bridging point for the children as they settle into their new setting. Related to this is the consultative “Ledbury Listening Project” that Tony has been working on. The project seeks to glean thoughts and ideas from the youth in the town and on Saturday 12th October there was an open meeting with young people sharing a series of presentation on their views of Ledbury.

 

Physical Well-being

We have been successful with a bid to the Household Support Fund and have secured funding of £11,000. This will cover the costs of CAP until December 2025. This is really good news and means that this essential service that helps those in financial difficulties, is secure for the short-term. In the town in the past year CAP has cleared nearly £100,000 of personal debt with its clients. The project also provides money coaching which is being done on a one-to-one basis as well as developing links with the Ledbury Foodbank.

 

The Knitting and Crochet social group continues to expand and develop depth of relationship amongst those attending. We now want to look at other social groups that could be set up.

 

Emotional Well-being

The Listening and Guidance team have had over 360 referrals since the project began and have provided over 2,000 hours of counselling. There are 3 people in this team and the project has received extremely positive feedback from LHP who wrote the following in a letter to the chaplains; “Thank you for all the support that you give to the LHP team. We are so lucky to have you to help and guide as and when we need a bit of support.”

 

The counselling service is similarly highly regarded and in the past 6 months LEAF’s counselling team have led 402 sessions. We are delighted that two more counsellors will be joining us in the near future. Both are on placement from Worcester University. We have also received requests from two others starting courses at the Uni to see if we can help them with gaining listening skills experience. Needless to say, despite these appointments, the need far outstrips supply, and we continue to consider ways in which we can expand the important work around mental health.  

 

LEAF continues to deliver a mentoring and counselling programme into the primary school. Two mentors work with children on a weekly basis and in the last 6 months LEAF has delivered 220 counselling sessions to children. The schools (Ledbury and Eastnor) both testify to the impact this is having on the children’s behaviour around school.

 

Kintsugi Hope has just started its 7th course and has around a dozen participants. Each course has been very well received by those attending and this is evidenced by the fact that many of the attendees from previous courses continue to meet socially and support each other.

 

Spiritual Well-being

This year has seen us put on three Alpha courses, the most recent starting last month. It has been wonderful to see faith birthed, rekindled or refreshed through this programme. Many are now attending churches and as we shared last time two people were baptised after the last course.

 

The Monday night fellowship, although not large in terms of numbers continues to provide an ecumenical focus for the churches in the town which along with the joint services and the 7/12 prayer meetings continue to form the building blocks for God’s work in the town.

 

Children’s Work

The “Open the Book” teams go into Ledbury and Eastnor schools on a weekly basis. They underwent training from the Bible Society in early July and will start to use the new resources from the beginning of term.

The two Summer Fun Days this year took place at St Michaels and were well attended with some 60 children registered for each day. As usual there was great support from volunteers across our churches. The usual activities such as the Light Party and the Advent party are planned for the Autumn and Christmas. Alongside this LEAF will once again be presenting ‘Real Advent Calendars’ to the classes in LPS and Eastnor.

Youth

Sloe started work as our full-time youth worker just before the end of summer term and has begun to build relationships with some pupils and staff at both JMHS and LPS, and with other stakeholders. She has played a key role in the ‘Ledbury Listening’ project, aimed at garnering the views of young people in the Town.

The new Youth Hub had its first meeting in October and will meet twice weekly. Sloe is looking to provide food at the sessions, and she has been in contact with ‘Fairshare’ who will help provide excess food from local supermarkets. Workers from Strong Young Minds (a project run by the Counselling organisation CLD) will support the evening sessions and we are looking at ways to bring together the children’s and youth counselling resources of both LEAF and CLD.

Family Support

The Thursday morning Tots group continues to thrive and is home to a steady number of families. We have a new volunteer Gemma who joined us at the start of the academic year and she is settling in really well as part of the team. Lydia is now carrying out individual work with families on a regular basis. A ‘Parenting Children with Additional Needs’ course has been started this term. This is a 7-week course utilising ‘Care for the Family’ resources.

Alternative Provision

Jonathan Catley was appointed to this role in the summer and since the beginning of term he has worked with four boys on a weekly basis. They are currently designing and building an outdoor classroom that will become a working centre within the school for any further ongoing provision. The boys are all enjoying the project, are highly engaged and are developing good relationships with Jonathan as he works alongside them.

 

Behind the scenes

We wish to commend the work of Chris Daws, our finance manager to you all. There is so much she does which allows the frontline services to operate seamlessly. She has dealt with the administration and financial elements of the move into St Katherines, worked with CAP Malvern to agree the new Service Level Agreement, completed funding reports alongside the bread and butter of dealing with “all things financial” in terms of LEAF.

 

Along with Chris, Martyn Kyle has been working diligently on the various processes and funding needs underpinning LEAF. He has been streamlining our IT functions and starting to establish a ‘knowledge base’ that can be accessed and shared by Project Team members. He has met with each of the Project Team to assess needs and to build synergy into our systems.

 

Funding

With the funding for CAP (£11,000) now secured we are now beginning to target other opportunities for funding. We believe that we will be able to secure some £36,000 of section 106 funding (monies that building developers are obligated to contribute to local communities) from Herefordshire Council. Tony has also met with the chair of another charity, Rowlands Trust and has been discussing the opportunity to secure further funding through this trust. We are looking at the possibility of putting these funds together in order to roll out some building projects at St Katherines which will ensure that the property becomes fit for purpose for the new activities it will increasingly host.  

 

Our funding still relies primarily on donations from individuals and if you are able to help us to continue to provide our life changing services then please see the details below.

 

Joined up thinking

As Peter Williamson reminded us at the Dedication service much of the power of LEAF is held in its joined-up thinking and the synergy of its various services. He told a story of a woman who accessed the website and consequently received a pastoral visit, this led to her attending the listening and guidance support. Similarly, we know that 12% of those accessing the chaplaincy service end up referring themselves to the LEAF counselling team and there are those who have attended the Kintsugi Hope meetings have gone on to join the Alpha group. It is this ability that individuals have to find a path through our many services to meet their own various needs that remains a true strength of our ongoing work.

 

Giving

If you wish to donate, then please head to the website https://www.leafledbury.com/ where you will find a donation button on the home page or make a bank transfer to LEAF using the details below:  
CAF Bank
Sort Code                           40-52-40
Account Number             00034459

We also are interested in hearing from you if you feel you could contribute your time and expertise to one of the areas we currently offer. LEAF provides an ideal forum for those from various churches to come together as one and enrich the provision of the services we offer to the community in which we worship and live.

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