‘I would have cracked without them’: Mother hails charity that helps her son thanks to your donations

On the Breadline: Campaigns editor David Cohen reports on how the generosity of our readers – with £4m raised – is helping families already

Maeve Gumbley, therapy team manager for Unlocking Potential, which is backed by our appeal (Daniel Hambury/Stella Pictures L)

Nine-year-old Martin doesn’t talk about the cost of living crisis but what he does want to share is that his mother Laura is stressed about things that never upset her before. “Sometimes things happen outside school that make it hard for me to concentrate inside school,” he said, fidgeting with his playdough at his primary school in Streatham, south London.

Earlier Laura, 40, a single mother of five living on benefits, speaking over the phone, said candidly: “I try not to put my worries on my children, but these days I do get bit ‘aggie’ with them.

“Martin can drink almost a bottle of milk at a time but the price of milk has shot up and I can’t afford to keep buying it.

“Sometimes, while I am feeding the baby, he eats half a loaf of bread in one go and I shout, ‘What have you done?’ He tells me, ‘I’m sorry, I’m hungry.’ I feel bad but I tell him, ‘That bread has got to last so we can eat tomorrow’ – and then he gets upset and throws a tantrum and upsets the whole family.”

Tensions at Martin’s home have spilled out into school with teachers reporting that Martin’s behaviour had got “really bad”.

And it’s not just battles over staples like milk and bread. Martin, who has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, shares a bedroom with his younger brother and sister, and with his mother bedding down with the baby on the living room sofa, space is at a premium.

Martin said: “When I get to school, I sometimes need to escape the classroom and get outside to the playground where there is space.”

Martin’s spontaneous exits from classrooms have caused problems with his teachers, but a couple of months ago he started getting weekly help from Unlocking Potential, a charity that provides therapeutic support to more than 3,000 children in 24 schools in 10 London boroughs.

Laura says the difference in Martin’s behaviour since he started one-on-one therapy is “huge” and calls Unlocking Potential “a godsend”. “Therapy has given him an outlet to open up and talk and has started to transform his behaviour,” she said.

“He has become more understanding and accepting and when there is conflict, it doesn’t escalate so quickly and that’s changed the atmosphere at home for everybody.”

Cassie Oakeshott, of charity Unlocking Potential (Daniel Hambury/Stella Pictures L)

Unlocking Potential is one of more than 200 charities that the Independent has funded as part of our joint On the Breadline campaign with the Evening Standard - in partnership with Comic Relief and The Childhood Trust.

Of the £4m raised since we launched in late November, we have already given out £2.78m in grants, with the rest due to be awarded in a further grant round in the next few weeks.

Cassie Oakeshott, CEO and clinical director of Unlocking Potential, said their £50,000 grant would allow them to reach more schools in deprived areas of London and support more vulnerable children like Martin.

Cassie said: “The squeeze on family budgets is having a huge impact on the children we help. The children tell our therapists their parents are struggling to pay the rent and they worry they will get evicted and have to move schools – and lose their friends.

“They talk about their mothers not eating because there’s not enough, of parents holding down two jobs and being too tired to take them out or to play, of arguments at home over bills and of the embarrassment of having to put back food at supermarket checkouts.

“Sometimes parents don’t want to discuss these things and so having someone at school to share their worries with makes a big difference.”

The idea that children sometimes have to soak up the brunt of parental stress due to the cost of living crisis is one other charities recognise as well.

Jonny Boux is CEO of Ambition Aspire Achieve, a charity based in Newham, east London, which was also awarded a £50,000 grant from our appeal. He said that “when parents are having to choose between heating and eating, everything else goes out the window”.

He added: “Simply playing with your children, taking them on day-trips, short holidays – the sort of thing that can give children respite from the daily grind of poverty – all that goes missing very quickly. And when that happens over an extended period, it can be damaging to a child’s horizons and aspirations.”

CEO of Ambition Aspire Achieve Jonny Boux, with children from the group at Arc in the Park, Canning Town, east London (Matt Writtle)

Speaking from the charity’s base, an adventure playground in Canning Town where they provide after-school activities, 48-year-old Boux said the grant would allow them to provide regular day-trips and half-term residentials to 250 children from low-income households aged eight to 16.

Plans include a sailing trip around the Isle of Wight where 15 children will crew a boat for four nights, residentials in Wales and Mersea Island in Essex and to a working farm in Gloucestershire – as well as day-trips to Legoland and the seaside, Hampstead Heath and Epping Forest.

Kate, nine, who has attended their after-school club for two years, said the recent residential at Mersea Island was her first trip away in over a year.

As a measure of how things have deteriorated in the last six months, Boux said they had started running a Friday foodbank during Covid and had seen demand shoot up since the cost of living crisis “from five to 50 families”.

Food is supplied free by supermarkets as well as The Felix Project, which received a £120,000 grant from our appeal and is one of four charities we have funded that directly tackle food poverty. The others are FareShare, The Mayor’s Fund for London via their Kitchen Social project and City Harvest, which were given £500,000, £200,000 and £50,000 respectively.

For squeezed parents, like Carol, 41, who has multiple sclerosis and whose 8-year-old son Sam gets therapeutic support from Unlocking Potential at his school in Lambeth, the help we are funding is a game-changer.

“I’m living day to day and terrified about bills because everything has doubled,” she said. “I am skipping meals to feed them, but Sam is fixated on Pokemon cards. I used to spend £4 on them a week as rewards for him but I can no longer afford it. I also can’t afford to take him ice-skating after school anymore. It means more conflict over everything because he is easily triggered and he and his twin brother can fight like cats and dogs and then he ends up in my bedroom because of the arguments.”

Carol added: “Sam’s therapy is making a big difference. The school and the therapies team … without them, to be honest, I think I would have cracked.”

Sam, speaking after his therapy session at school, looked bright and happy. “When I talk about my feelings - it really helps me,” he said. “My brother is the kindest brother in the world but we fight and last night was not a good night.” His brow furrowed. “My mum is under a lot more stress lately. I don’t like to see people sad. I want my mother to be happy.”

The list of phase 1 grantees from our partnership with Comic Relief can be found here

The list of grantees from our partnership with The Childhood Trust can be found here

Names of parents and children have been changed.