The St. Laurence Sunbeam project provides a safe and affordable place; we work with some of Catford most deprived residents though a social contact programme. Though our programme children are offered the opportunity to play together and learn social skills and our adult participants get support in understanding the development needs of the children. Throughout our programme we emphasise the importance of accepting, respecting, welcoming everyone. We hope that using this approach we foster community pride and developing friendships that will last, building self-worth and self-esteem.

What we'll deliver:

• Provide a safe play space for Children under 5
• Provide an opportunity for Carers and parents to meet
• Provide information on aspects of childcare

Why it's a great idea:

• We engage with people of all backgrounds and nationalities, to build a stronger community, and work together to improve the society we live in by educating parents and children from a young age on what behaviour is acceptable, and together fight against crime and anti-social behaviour.
• Families who live in Catford and who have no family or friends and would have nowhere to go
• Young parents/carers to mixing in the community, gaining knowledge from experienced parents, and building their self-esteem and confidence
• Help families who are suffering with depression, and have no one to turn to
• Parents/carers finding it hard to deal with children’s’ challenging behaviour
• We build a stronger community by bringing older and younger residents together all races, religions and backgrounds. This benefits the community by building awareness

Steps to get it done:

• Continued employment of experienced play-leaders
• Continued provision of facilities
• Provision of new facilities to resource group activities

We seek to provide a good quality of social and educational activitie, helping to build the social skills of children and the parents self esteem. As a majority of parents that attend have English as their 2nd language, therefore we help them to learn more English and feel welcomed into the community. By our activities we encourage communication of parents and carers with our services which can benefit them and their children, through visits from representatives of other organisations..Our activities encourage the children and their carers in working together and help the children learn how to interact, share and care with other piers