Kids Hope

“One child. One hour. Once a week.” This is the motto for Kids Hope Australia.
This article by Rhonda Tilbrook and Julie Ridden was first published in the December 2023 edition of Revive magazine.

In 2016 the Deputy Principal of Floreat Primary School invited All Saints Floreat Uniting Church to be part of the Kids Hope program. Amanda Brown and Rhondda Tilbrook met members of North Beach Baptist Church who were involved in the program with North Beach Primary School. They explained how the program works – volunteers from the church spend an hour a week with a student who could benefit from one-to-one mentoring. During the hour time is spent on academic work, provided by the teachers, and on ‘fun’ activities.

Kids Hope is Australia’s largest early intervention, school-based mentoring program. Since starting in 2004, it has provided care and support to thousands of children across Australia through church volunteers.

In 2018, Monash University conducted a study evaluating the impact of Kids Hope, with 96% of teachers indicating that they believe that Kids Hope had a positive impact on the health and well-being of the mentored student. It is a reliable and easy to implement program, valued by teachers and parents.

Kids Hope equips congregations by providing high quality training, resources, and support for the volunteers. They establish the relationship between the school and the local congregation. It is a registered ChildSafe program. There is an administrative cost for joining Kids Hope but congregations should not see this a deterrent as the Uniting Generations Network does have some grant money available to help congregations with programs such as this.

Some mentors from All Saints Floreat have provided feedback on their experiences:

“I have mentored three students each with their own very different needs. When I started working with my present student she was reluctant to do or say anything but over time I found out what subjects grabbed her attention. Puzzle books, games, craft and a love of all things nature gave me plenty of scope to work with. I found a book on Leaf Litter which kept us busy for a few weeks with gloves on and a garden trowel out in the school grounds looking for insects.
My most enduring moment came last year when I asked if she would like to help decorate some gift bags for our church Christmas appeal. Without prompting she wrote a message in pencil on each bag. On my last day of the term I gave her a printout of the thank you message sent to all those who had helped.
I had taken a photograph of some of her bags to highlight the message. When I told her why I had chosen her bags her eyes filled with tears. I had just told her she was so very special because she was the only person who was thoughtful enough to write a personal message on each bag and how important that would be to the person receiving the gift.”

“One of the first activities I did was working through a ‘getting to know you’ sheet. I learnt a little about their interests, pets and family. One of the boys was competitive and we played a lot of card games where he was pleased to win. During the games he gradually started to talk more about what he had done during the week. Our major academic task was reading and it was pleasing to see his confidence with reading improve over time.”

Kids Hope helps build relationships between congregations, students, their families and teachers. It is an easy to run program, low energy- high impact, and is very suitable for older congregations to engage with the younger generations. All Saints Floreat are now in their seventh year and enjoy seeing their mentorees grow.

You can see Amanda Brown from All Saints Floreat, talking about her experience as a Kids Hope mentor at https://vimeo.com/688637713
For more information on how your congregation could get involved in Kids Hope, contact Melissa French at melissa@kidshope.org.au or Julie Ridden, Children, Families, Youth and Young Adult Co-ordinator for the Uniting Church WA at julie.ridden@wa.uca.org.au