Children's Organisations

"Out of the Depths" is a three-phase art project that aims to empower young people to explore Mental Health and Wellbeing through the lens of faith using creativity. Phase one in moving beyond words will be a high quality, innovative residential program with resident artist, Janaya McCallum. Phase two will be a touring art exhibition in schools and parishes and phase three will be to digitise the artwork, creative fresh resources that will enable young people to deep dive into their own understanding and experiences of Mental Health.

Since 2007, Prayer Spaces in Schools has been creating safe, creative spaces for children and young people to reflect and pray. We are working with RE Today to produce lesson plans and other resources for teachers and volunteers to deliver wraparound teaching supporting the prayer space experience. We’re also providing an updated multi-language ‘How to Get Started’ video course for volunteers, and updating our website to improve engagement and keep resources available!

Keynsham Girls’ Brigade wanted to learn about Christmas around the World so they set about a research project which included listening to stories from families about their traditions and learning where the different traditions originate from. They produced displays which were displayed in two community venues over the Christmas Period, as well as volunteering at the Winter Festival and Christmas Messy Church where they share some of the things they had been learning.

Supporting Girls to Flourish
Flourish provides 1:1 and small group mentoring for girls (from all faiths and backgrounds) aged 10-18 in Warwickshire, who struggle with their self-esteem, mental health, and emotional wellbeing. Mentoring is delivered in schools and community settings by amazing female staff and volunteers, many from local churches. They provide a safe, nurturing environment for girls to address the challenges they face and develop strategies to support them in their future lives and to help realise their full potential.

Project Playmaker Belfast
Project Playmaker is a new initiative from Onside Soccer which uses the power of football to improve the lives of children and young people.  Working in Belfast, we deliver free, cross-community football training sessions for children aged 7–14 years old, as well as a mentorship programme for young people aged 15-25, focusing on training to become community football coaches, gaining qualifications, work experience and moving towards paid employment.

Encounter Christianity is a Bristol based charity, staffed by Christian teachers. It aims to enrich the religious education of local pupils as they explore different elements of the Christian faith.

Our current project is delivering sensory based workshops in local Special Educational Needs schools. The three workshops we are developing focus on God’s creation and the Christmas and Easter stories.

All the resources used are highly visual and include auditory learning aids as well as tactile objects. By taking volunteers from local churches into schools with us, we aim to give children an experience of Christianity as a lived faith.

Prayer Spaces in Schools
Off The Fence's Schools and Youth programme offers wrap-around support to over 500 young people across Brighton & Hove in 6 local schools. They offer 1-to-1 mentoring, Prayer Spaces, lunch clubs and Summer Schools to provide respite from troubled home lives and aid educational and social development.

Through the generous support of Westhill, their programme has developed further sensory-enriching faith-based education through light, sound and textures in their Prayer Spaces - ensuring each child feels fully supported through extracurricular sessions.

That’s how it really is

With over five decades of global experience in conflict zones, CHIPS is dedicated to fostering peace and reconciliation. We empower communities to instigate enduring grassroots transformations for restored peace. Since 2014, we've been actively engaged in Brixton, UK, focusing on countering youth violence through constructive avenues for young people. Filmmaking has proven to be a powerful avenue for Brixton's youth, teaching teamwork, collaboration, unity through the art of storytelling.

In 2021-2022, our youth crafted the poignant short film, "That's How It Really Is," shedding light on subjects like young carers, self-harm, unhealthy coping mechanisms, and child molestation. With support from Westhill Endowment, we are able to orchestrate eight screening events nationwide, encouraging dialogue, support, and proactive engagement among young people. These screenings provide an opportunity for the youth involved in the film to shape, develop, and facilitate critical conversations on these complex subjects, ultimately offering a platform for vulnerable exploration of the contemporary youth experience.

Peace at the Heart of Scottish Schools: Travelling Peace Education Exhibition

We are creating an exhibition, ‘Peace at the Heart of Scottish Schools’ to demonstrate the value of peace education and the power of children to bring peace and justice to the world.

Boy’s Mentoring and Advocacy

The Door’s mission is to bring hope into the lives of young people and their families by unlocking potential and opening opportunities so that their past does not define their future. We exist because every young person and their parents need to feel safe, happy, and valued, with the best possible opportunity to reach their potential. This pilot project aims to provide bespoke mentoring and advocacy services for boys. It aims to support the needs specifically of those who are notably absent from education and display a rise in behavioural issues resulting in ASB. Primarily working with individuals who are referred to The Door, this project will creatively support boys via digital platforms, mentoring, and produce engaging activities to both increase their constructive participation and their self-esteem.

Graduate Project at Greenbelt 2023

The Student Christian Movement is a community of students, past and present, deeply committed to an inclusive, progressive and radical approach to the Christian faith. Our vision is of SCM as a generous community, expressing a lived faith in Jesus Christ where social action meets prayerful devotion. We seek to be both a radical voice for equality and justice, and a safe home for progressive Christian students.

Diverse Voices

Bolton Lads and Girls Club (BLGC) is an innovative and progressive young people’s charity based in Bolton, Greater Manchester. Established in 1889, our mission is to enable children and young people, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, to live healthier, happier, and safer lives. We believe that every child deserves the best start in life and chance to fulfil their potential.

11+ Free Tuition Bursaries

Grammar Schools were always designed to improve social mobility….. So what has happened…?

Fairview Education provides Free Tuition Bursaries to disadvantaged children in Gloucestershire who qualify for Free School Meals (FSM) so that they have a better chance of passing the 11+ Grammar school entry examination.

Gloucestershire grammar schools are state funded but have a very low FSM intake (4.5%) compared with other secondary schools (16%). This is because the entry examination is so difficult that many parents employ private tutors to help their children prepare. This is simply unaffordable for FSM families and so we provide weekly face to face tutoring for free during the year before the examination.

Westhill Endowment’s grant will allow Transforming Lives for Good (TLG) to open 47 new Early Intervention centres across the UK from 2023-2024 in partnership with local churches. This will train 235 new volunteer coaches to get alongside 230 children in school, who are facing a variety of difficulties.

By letting them know someone cares and encouraging them to reengage with their education, we are able to combat the devastating impact of COVID-19 lockdowns and the cost-of-living crisis on these already-disadvantaged children’s emotional and mental wellbeing.

Relational Hub Collective

Relational Hub supports youth workers and their organisations to create sustainable youth work projects that provide a home away from home for the young people who need one most.

Boro Cereal is an exciting initiative, designed to equip and empower Primary School aged children to engage with and improve their local culture, making a big difference in Middlesbrough.  Working with schools and churches, BiG KIDS will deliver a series of creative lessons, focussing on servant leadership, entrepreneurial and presentation skills, giving children opportunities to innovate social action community projects; inspiring them to change the negative cycles they often find themselves in. We believe that God has placed each of us in our localities and situations for a purpose – we hope to allow the children to find theirs.

Kids Alive International is a Christian charity serving some of the world’s most vulnerable children through a number of projects. This includes Hall Mead School, a Christian primary school for 500 impoverished children from challenging backgrounds in one of the poorest regions of Kenya.  But the school has had no library and very little Christian literature. Thanks to Westhill Endowment, we can refurbish one of the classrooms into a library, where children can go to read Christian literature and classroom study materials (none of them have any book or toys at their home!). Thank you Westhill Endowment!

Festivals - Come and Celebrate.

Keynsham Girls’ Brigade is planning a series of displays at Victoria Methodist Church and Key Centre - Easter, Pentecost, Christmas, Fair Trade, Harvest and the Environmental importance of gardens. They will be informative, multi-sensory, thought provoking and accessible to different ages and abilities. They will also produce smaller displays in the Baptist Church garden which opens onto Keynsham High Street.

The Bell Tower Youth Drop-in provide daily after school youth provision for all secondary school students. Our project launched in 2014 after previous government funded youth centres had to close due to the cut backs to the statutory youth services.

Our primary goal is to provide all young people in our city with a safe place, with opportunities to volunteer, learn and thrive through our various off-shoot projects.