Five layers of care around each child

We visit children at home and spend time with them in their schools and neighbourhoods. By coming back week after week, we become familiar faces children and families can get to know and trust.

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For over 25 years, we’ve been getting to know children and families in Leeds’ inner-city communities. Through home visits, school assemblies, Kidz Klubs, street play and family support, we share God’s love in practical ways.

Children have someone who remembers them, listens and takes them seriously. Families have someone to turn to when things are difficult, including practical help during a crisis. There’s room for fun and friendship too.

Challenges addressed:

• Generational Poverty
• Poverty of opportunity
• Family instability
• Trauma and lack of trusted adults

38,000–40,000 home visits yearly

Children thrive when their grown-ups do too. We support parents and carers through difficult times, helping with practical needs and working with schools and local services so families don’t have to face everything alone.

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Families can ask for help from people they already know and trust. We listen without judgement, help parents and carers make their voices heard, and work with them to find the support their children need.

That might mean finding essentials during a crisis, working with a school when a child is struggling to attend, or helping a family rebuild communication with local services when trust has broken down. Throughout, we keep the child’s needs at the centre.

One local dad, a longtime volunteer, noticed a boy who had only two sets of clothes. He sorted through his own son’s wardrobe and brought clothes to share. When our team delivered them the following week, the boy’s face lit up.

Challenges families are navigating

• Mental health pressures affecting children and parents
• Poverty, including going without food, heating, beds and other essentials
• Family stress, relationship breakdown and domestic abuse
• Difficulties attending school, additional needs/SEND and unmet health needs
• Community crime, exploitation and concerns about children’s safety
• Poor-quality or insecure housing
• Gaps in stretched services, and stress linked to justice or immigration processes

We’re in it for the long haul. That means we have the joy of seeing children grow into young leaders and become role models for the next generation.

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Kidz Klub is in it for decades, not seasons. Over time, children become young leaders; young leaders become role models; and communities begin to transform from the inside out.

We equip children and young people with purpose, confidence and opportunities to lead. Through our Skills Portfolio, community projects, mentoring and leadership pathways, they discover their gifts and use them to bless their neighbourhoods.

As young people help shape and lead projects in their own communities, they create new patterns for the next generation. Younger children see people they know taking responsibility and making a difference where they live.

This is the long-term change we work towards: leadership replacing despair, confidence replacing limitation, and loving presence replacing instability across generations. As local people develop the confidence, relationships and experience to support one another, we’ve seen how neighbourhoods become stronger and better able to face challenges together.

Challenges addressed

• Poverty and limited opportunities
• Low confidence and difficulty imagining a positive future
• Too few trusted adults who stay
• Vulnerability to harmful influences when positive opportunities are missing