Our Story
It all started with Dilys…
Dilys worked in Lancashire for several years in both local authority Children’s Services, in a large voluntary children’s agency and with the Courts. She became worried about the lack of resources for children in long term Local Authority care. She was both influenced and encouraged in her work by Jane Rowe (Jane Rowe & Lydia Lambert 1973), both of whom researched what happens to children who were ‘waiting’ in Local Authority care for permanent family placement, for longer than six months.
Dilys moved to South London in 1984 and continued to provide individual help to children in foster and adoptive homes and their families; using arts, sand and other materials. She also started training others in this methodology, mainly for field and residential Social Workers.
Dilys already had experience of charities and knew the difference they could make for these children. Drawing on all this experience she gathered together a group of like-minded professional women. In 1991 they started what was to become Chance for Children Trust (now known as Chance Arts) as a registered charity with the Charities Commission for England and Wales.
In the early days…
The emphasis of our work was trying to prevent children coming into local authority care. We were funded by a significant Sussex charitable foundation and an increasing number of private donations from individuals and grant making trusts. This enabled us to spread our catchment area outside London to Kent and West Sussex. It also enabled other senior experienced social workers to join us on a part-time basis.
We were then joined by a Community Musician who had a wide experience of the music world which considerably enhanced what we could offer the children. With her help we also expanded our fundraising and she helped us receive a grant from Youth Music enabling us to conduct a pilot programme Play, Sing and Move with nursery children in partnership with The Children’s Society in Luton. We then moved from South London to West London where supporters of our work assisted us with further fundraising activities.
Developing our therapeutic programmes
We have continued to expand our outreach and now focus on providing multidisciplinary Arts Psychotherapy interventions for children and young people, many of whom are in foster care, guardianship or in the adoption process. Thus, in effect, going back to our original raison d’etre.
Subsequent funding from The John Lyon’s Charity enabled us to develop four therapeutic music programmes for vulnerable children in Ealing primary schools over a three-year period. These groups continue to run in several schools with grants from a variety of different funding streams.
The Church Urban Fund enabled us to set up a special community programme for a diverse group of parents with infants under the age of 3 in a church hall in Southall. The group continues to be run by church volunteers.
Even before the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, the referrals we received involved children in increasingly complex situations. We have expanded our team to be able to offer Drama, Music and Art Psychotherapy, to children from the early years to age 12. Whilst the child is receiving services from us, we are also able to support the significant adults in their lives.