September 2010: St Leonard’s church, Bootle
With Debbie King, Community Development Worker.
St Leonard’s church plays an active part in the community life of the Peel Road area of Bootle. The church, and its linked church hall, were recently modernised to make them more suitable for wider use by the community. Along with regular weekly activities such as mother and toddler groups, Brownies and Guides, IT training and a community lunch, the church does outreach work with local children and young people, giving them a space to hang out away from the streets.
Debbie King, the Community Development Worker at the project, told us about the level of need in the area: “The need here is to get the children off the streets. Often, the kids are hungry. The older session – they’re 12 years old – they’re drinking, smoking, sexually active. It’s not just opening the doors for a game of pool; it’s more than that. We need to try to address the issues, and try to get them into something else.”
St Leonard’s isn’t a church-run youth club; it’s a youth club at the church, staffed by youth workers and volunteers from the area. The club has two sessions, an early session directly after school for younger children, and a later session for older children and young people. Activities at the youth club include football and games, bit also involve training, courses and discussion.
One of Debbie’s successes is being able to involve parents and families in the youth work. “I’ve worked on the sessions, and got to know the kids and their families. They’ve got ownership of St Leonard’s, and there’s not much else around here to go to. Someone once said to me, ‘This St Leonard’s is some of these kids’ life.’ They don’t go out of Bootle; some of the boys who went on [a recent] trip to the Lake District, that’ll be the first time they’ve been out of Bootle.”
Funding from Church Urban Fund enabled the church to undertake a major refurbishment of the buildings which has made the church and hall more suitable – and enjoyable – for community activities. “I’m always of the view that they should have the best,” Debbie told us. “If you have the best, you aspire to the best.”
