To make these breaks possible, the charity requires teams of volunteers to stay with them and assist their permanent staff in looking after their young charges. Anyone over 18 can offer their time, but the youngsters really resonate with teenagers like Spencer.
“I think it’s really important for these children to be able to form positive relationships with adults, because some of them don’t have that in their home lives,” Spencer explains. “But being a bit closer to them in age than some of the permanent staff, I think they viewed me and the other young volunteers as more like friends. It became almost like a big-sister type relationship with some of them.”
There was some shock among Spencer’s friends when she told them of her summer plans. Though she’d done babysitting and a bit of GCSE maths tutoring, Spencer had never expressed any wish to work with children.
“They were all going interrailing and planning this wild, party-filled summer and normally that’s the type of thing I’d love,” she admits. “But I’m so glad I chose this route instead, it was by far the best experience of my life.”
Having never worked with vulnerable children before, Spencer was glad to have received some training from Go Beyond before she arrived at the coastal centre.
“The first thing that happens when you arrive on Monday is the induction and safety briefing,” she explains. “Everyone is DBS checked, but you do child protection training, how and what to report things, setting boundaries. A lot of the children are vulnerable so there are things to mention and things not to mention.
“It’s best not to talk too much about home, for instance. In the first week, when it was time for the kids to go home and they were getting upset, it was hard not to say things like, ‘Aren’t you looking forward to seeing your mum?’ or things like that, because they may not have a mum waiting for them, or they might not be glad to be going home at all.”
