Summer Holidays at I Choose Freedom
Summer Holidays at an I Choose Freedom Refuge
At I Choose Freedom, we are almost at the end of the summer holidays so we thought we would talk you through what goes on at the refuge during the school break.
Every year, we create a Summer calendar covering the 6 weeks of the school holidays. We make this accessible to all the mums so they know what is going on during the 6 weeks. We make sure we put on fun activities each week at the refuge which both mum and kids can get involved in.
Thanks to Family Action and Meals and More, I Choose Freedom have received support and funding to run a holiday programme called Holiday Hub this summer. This programme aims to address poor social inclusion, family nutrition, well-being and financial strain. The programme has allowed us to offer the women and their children at the refuge free healthy meals and snacks and physical/food related activities. We have also been able to run educational trips in the local community.
We believe it is very important to make summer holidays as much fun for the kids and mums as possible so they don’t miss out on experiences because of their current situations. We make sure the women in the refuge know what is going on and what we at the refuge are running. This eliminates the pressure from the mums to have to plan things to do with the children all day during the 6 weeks. We want the kids to have as much fun as possible and enjoy the days they have off school and get their mums involved too.
Our volunteer Bisma, along with our Children’s Advocate Ruth and our Children’s Play Therapist Emma have planned 6 weeks of activities which include day trips to parks and farms, sports days and garden party activities along with plenty of arts and crafts. We also run our normal services which include; children’s play therapy, one to one sessions, adolescent trauma therapy sessions, creche and looking after the children during their mum's therapy sessions. Along with keeping things running normally throughout the refuge!
