Our Services

Empowering Tamil families through Family Learning.

A Tailor made Family Learning Curriculum to empower Tamil Parents so that children get the support from their parents in many ways. That is higher levels of awareness, access to information , higher levels of selfconfidence, positive parenting and altogether understanding that learning would foster stronger relationships among family members and community.

Our family learning programme in Merton is run at New Minster Children Centre, St.Thomas Children Centre and Church Road Children Centre (Activitieswith Polish community). “Story sacks” in partnership with Polka Theatre is are new initiatives enjoyed by all parents and staff.

In Lewisham we successfully established partnerships with Sandhurst Primary and Rushey Green Primary schools. Family finance course that ran for 15 weeks was highly appreciated by parents. In Wandsworth we have started to work with the Tooting library and targeted Tamil families.We regularly evaluate our services through discussions, feed backs as we believe in improving our services on a regular basis and we are monitored by our funders through telephone feedback and end of year reports.

Advice and Advocacy Service

The two years funds given by Princess Diana Trust had come to an end by end of May this year. The advice and advocacy work are much needed to our community but due to the lack of prospective funders and available funds we had stretched our capacity beyond limits to provide the above service. Community service volunteers are needed to continue this service.

Abayam Advice Support

Service (Domestic Violence) Abayam Domestic Violence Support Service project is implemented by South London Tamil Welfare group with Family Support Team of the London Borough of Merton to provide a service across the Asian community linking with other mainstream services. Domestic Violence Support Worker is placed two days at Steer’s Mead and one day at 36 High Street SW19 2AB.

The project staff works on every client, but focuses mainly on the clients coming from SLTWG and other sources.

Tamil Health Advocacy Services

Tamil Health Advocacy is a service to support Tamil women and their families who are planning to have babies at St George’s Hospital and living within the catchment area of Lavender & Pink team. This service is in partnership with St George’s Hospital (maternity services).

The aim of the service is to make it easier for Tamil families to use maternity services at St.Georges Hospital and to have a positive experience. This is done by providing more information in Tamil and having a bilingual health advocate available to support families in their appointments and activities. The Health Advocate accompanies Tamil ladies during Booking, postnatal home visits, and Antenatal clinic appointments with midwives & GP’s and also scanning appointments. We run Tamil antenatal classes facilitated by a midwife and interpreted by a health advocate. As part of the project, we translate relevant information relating to pregnancy and childbirth into Tamil.

Early years Child care and Children’s Centres Service

Aim of the above project is as follows. Encouraging the Tamil families to engage in children’s centre support activities. Linking the people in need of specific services to the Multi Agency Team services and respective organisations The “early years’” project targeted the families with small children and had been encouraging the Tamil families to use the children’s centre support activities. The project manager had also been linking the people in need of specific services to the “Multi Agency Team Services” and to other relevant organisations. These activities were carried out in children’s centers in Merton. Tamil mothers enjoyed the service and some mothers had done childcare courses and achieved accreditation. Mothers who needed help with English as a language were given free English classes at Merton Adult College.

Older People Service

The older people’s service has continued as in the past years. Although we get a minimal support from the Merton Council to run the drop in centre on Saturdays at Taylor Road Community Centre we continue the drop-in services for the elders on Tuesdays at Croydon Voluntary Centre, Wednesdays at Merton Hall and Thursdays at St.Nicholas Church for the Wandsworth sector. Thes services are funded by the SLTWG from its general reserve.

Supplementary Education Classes

South London Tamil Welfare Group’sn Supplementary Education Project is a leading project providing supplementaryneducation, programmed for Tamil children and to the other community children. A good all-round education gives children the best possible start in life. Yet Tamil children who come from underprivileged families are not performing as well as they could in the schools for number of reasons. These classes were devised to coach and aid their learning mainly to improve achievements of students in the core subjects of Maths and English in line with the National Curriculum and help them integrate within the communities they need to be part of.

The Supplementary School Project, established in 2002 has become a community led project now offering educational support, Carnatic dance classes and cultural activities, in order to aid the children feel more socially comfortable and to help the families raise their self-esteem maximizing their opportunities. As observed, thisencourages all the children to get fully involved at the forefront of these events.

Health Trainer Programme

NHS Wandsworth has recently introduced the Health Trainer Programme across Wandsworth. The primary aim of the project is to work with clients from hard to reach and disadvantaged communities to help them access existing health services and to support them in making positive lifestyle changes and help them improve their health and wellbeing.

About the Service

This is a free and confidential service to anyone who is over 18 years of age and lives in Wandsworth. Role of the Health Trainers The role of the Health Trainer is to work one-to-one with clients to develop a Personal Health Plan and support the client to make positive changes in their life to improve their health and wellbeing.

Health Trainers can provide information on a range of topics, including:

• Physical Activity
• Healthy Eating
• Weight Management
• Smoking cessation
• Sensible drinking

Social activities to promote mental wellbeing Health trainers also signpost clients to different health and lifestyle services in the borough.

Six Health Trainers work within host organizations across the borough. Accordingly, one has been placed with South London Tamil Welfare Group to support the clients to make positive changes to their lifestyle.

Social activities to promote mental wellbeing Health trainers also signpost clients to different health and lifestyle services in the borough. Six Health Trainers work within host organizations across the borough. Accordingly, one has been placed with South London Tamil Welfare Group to support the clients to make positive changes to their lifestyle.

Effective Intervention for Tamil Families of Croydon

SLTWG services in Croydon have been in high demand since 2006. As to date we have been working with 165 Tamil parents in various centres in Croydon including Canterbury Community Centre, Lanfranc school, West Thornton primary school, Elmwood primary school, Kingsley primary school, Gonville primary school, Ashburton community school (CAEA) as well as Winterburne Infant school.

The aims of the Parenting Round-3 (2009 - 2011) is to offer effective interventions for Tamil parents whose children are vulnerable to gang memberships, or carrying knives and or guns, so as to prevent the children committing criminal behaviours in the future. It also aims to promote stronger family relationships, improved parental confidence and skills through intergenerational activity. Having a partnership with Foundation 4 life, our target is to involve 100 families and 100 young people in this project.

Through this innovative service, Parents will

• Become familiar with positive
• parenting
• Learn new skills
• Make new friends
• Increase self confidence
• Participate in community life
• Bring out own skills and share with others

Children will

• Improve their leadership
• Get new circle of friends
• Get community mentors
• Get opportunity to develop talents
• Get one to one support to deal with
• personal issues
• Improve their communication skills