Help me plan an educational charity

[twopercent]

I am reaching the end of my working life and have been a teacher in London for many decades.

Now comes the time for thinking through what to do next. I am seriously thinking of setting up and educational charity in the next few years. Yes, I realise how difficult and expensive that is, but I have the rest of my life to dedicate to it, so at this stage, lets think big!

I would be pleased to hear your ideas. I am thinking of the kids that fall through the gaps. I volunteer in a prison, and am well aware how many prisoners have educational problems. ADHD, dyslexia, trauma, illiteracy.

What could a charity do to reach these people and turn things around BEFORE they go to prison? Also, may after?

I am thinking about employing mentors. My idea is funding and/or providing a mentor to work in the isolation room of a school. A mentor that could maybe have a "caseload" of 10 or so and have an input into each one several times a week. Educational input, looking at their work with them, individual tuition, and doing the same work as is being done in lessons, but on a one to one basis, to give the child a boost, and to make them feel more important. It would have to be with the child's agreement, obviously. These mentors could be maybe employed by the school but funded by the charity? Some sort of join recruitment? It needs to be a long term appointment, as one of the issues in secondary schools at the moment is how transient so many relationships are, due to the high turn over of teachers.

And in prison? Educational mentors? Or some sort of therapy? I don't know much about therapy, but I have wondered in the past whether it would help if it was available to some prisoners? Any suggestions?

Of course the problem here is transience too. Prisoners move around a lot. So maybe therapists that could move visit many different prisons? Or a network of therapists that could continue with the work started in one prison? Ideally the therapist would be able to visit the new prison, but of course pragmatically, it is likely to have to be a mixture of both.

What do people think? Thank you for any input.

Are there not charities already doing this?

Maybe, if you can point me in the right direction, I could take a look. Yes, it would be better to add to an existing charity rather than set up a rival. But in 35 years of teaching and volunteering in prison, I have not come across anything like this

Mentoring has been cited as one of the protective factors and predictive of success for care experienced young people , who as you'll know, are disproportionately represented in the justice system.
This organisation is Scottish and don't know if there's anything like it in England: mcrpathways.org

Why not work in the charity sector for a few years first? Or at least be a trustee? Lots of charities will be glad to have you. Look on Guardian Jobs or Reach for trustee roles.

There are already a number of organisations working in the field of mentoring and prevention. This should give an overview:

https://foundations.org.uk/

I have worked for charities in my spare time for many years. I have not been a trustee myself, but have worked very closely with a good friend who is the trustee for an educational charity in Uganda, including going and working in one of their schools in UK school holidays. I have also done a lot of fundraising, etc, and looked into setting up a charity before. It was too much at the time, but coming close to retirement, I am now ready for it.

Sounds like two different charities to me - one targeting school kids who need extra help and one targeting prisoners.

Check out the charity Yes Futures for what you're talking about regarding mentoring school kids.

For the prison thing a quick Google throws up some existing charities that do this.

A family friend post retirement has in the last few years set up a charity with just one project that is nowhere near as complicated or difficult as what you're proposing and it has been incredibly difficult. The fundraising, the working with other organisations, the volunteers who can't always be relied on, the paperwork... Has sounded like a nightmare. Good luck

I agree you should concentrate on one issue to start with

My dmum worked a lot with families with social services involvement and I remember her saying that what a lot of these parents really needed was just a stable grandmother. Someone to help out with the housework, or food shopping, or taking the dc to extra curricular activities etc, so yes a family mentor would be perfect.
I know there is homestart but that is only for families with an under 5. What about as the dc get older? Especially the challenging but vital teenage years, we need family mentors to support the parents and the children then so that's a charity I would set up if I had the opportunity

I'd suggest early intervention to pick up their foundation skills

Home start for older children seeks like a great concept.

Second other posters’ advice to look at charities that are already working in the areas you are interested in - even if they’re not yet doing the exact work you are envisioning, as they could always pick it up as a new programme in the future.

It is immensely difficult (and expensive) to set up a new charity from scratch and build your infrastructure to the point where you can actually start making a difference; generally speaking it is almost always better to latch on to an existing org, either through volunteering, donating, or working. I say this as someone who works in the charity sector!

I say this kindly but it is not well thought through. I was involved in a project that set up a hub in south London that provided this. We were working in a smallish geographic area (2 London boroughs) and had a huge national body behind us and it still wasn't easy as the reach (older children and young people) is a big group. We did this by providing space for a range of groups to have their own base, come in and provide their own services and once young people were used to coming,introduce them to other groups on the same site. So almost a glorified signposting role rather than a grassroots charity and it was still difficult.

I always suggest people start small and get stuck in and actually do what they want to achieve before thinking about how to take it wider. So in your case decide on either schools or the penal system. Then go and see it on the ground. SO if schools, offer to go in to an isolation room and help. See what the problems are and what is needed - its often having someone with the time to have a look and see what resources are already there, signpost effectively and then look at what the gaps are. Once you find a gap - try and fill it rather than looking at the big picture.

You may have a good idea but you need to do ground work first. So who would you be set up to support, be specific. Do a feasibility study. Talk to other third sector organisations working in and around that space. Reach out to funders to understand what they would require of you to fund. How would you set up, as a charity? Do you have people around you that could be trustees and give you support. Once you have the basics in place, look to start small so you can evidence it works but also you can evidence the gaps to support future funding bids. It is all possible but you need strong building blocks.

been doing this for 30+ years....

There are volunteers that come in to my local school to do reading interventions with children. Not just like parent helpers listening to children read, they do proper activities and work with children nominated by teachers, once a week, for up to a year at a time. I can’t remember what they’re called though.

Then you should know where the gaps are and be targeting those not coming on here to ask.

You have a huge depth of experience as a practitioner, but working within (let alone leading!) a charity is quite a different role - it has its own set of needs, pressures and is a skillset in itself. That is why it could be really helpful to begin your journey by taking on a trustee role, or a short term job within the sector.

A quick search brought up this:
Trustee of grant making charity, Yapp Charitable Trust | Reach Volunteering

This organisation also runs some useful events:
Home | Getting on Board | United Kingdom | Recruit trustees | Become a trustee

Hope that helps.

Some great posts on this thread @twopercent and this one especially.

Absolutely agree that a great idea does not make for a great charity. We've seen it when it works well and we've seen the absolute car crashes which brings the whole charity sector into disrepute.

You need to establish the evidence of need and then absolutely lead with that need. You're talking about a crowded market; especially with education and the prison system

A good link for some interesting ed projects Home - SHINE (shinetrust.org.uk)
A good link for prison charities https://prisonguide.co.uk/prison-charities/

Who is doing what in your perceived market and what's working well and where's the gap? A charity is no different to any business in that you need that feasibility study which will lead you to a business plan.

And don't ask a bunch of mumsnetters how to plan your charity - go to the potential clients and service users themselves. Funders are very big on "lived experience" these days so if you are going ahead with establishing a charity you should consider that when you put your board together.

DEF get trustee experience yourself.

Finally, be very honest with what you want from this yourself. Are you looking for a paid job? Or to act as a figurehead? There's no wrong answer but thinking about what you want to take from the process and what your exit plan might be is no bad thing. I have seen so many charities falter and fail because they've been vanity projects for the founder, who has found it difficult when their "baby" evolves and grows and other opinions come into play.

There are definitely therapists working in some prisons already. As PP have said, you'd need to find out where the gaps are.

@MildredSauce is spot on about getting experience as s trustee. You need to understand how governance works, responsibility etc. look to do some free trustee training. Your local cvs may have courses.

What about this?

www.schoolhomesupport.org.uk

Libby the Govt to bring back traineeships.

There are a lot of third sector organisations who already provide services such as these. I work in the LA and we commission some of them. I would talk to your LA and see what the local offer looks like as you might well be duplicating what’s out there already.

Well it seems you have two different ideas - interventions/mentorship in schools and mentorship in prisons.

I don't know much about prisons but there are plenty of established education charities and I think schools tend to get bombarded with these offers. Most of these offers come at a cost so you'd be battling competition there. You'd need a very strong marketing/sales pitch to get off the ground with stakeholders depending on where you intend to offer the service. London is saturated to death with these opportunities. Coastal areas, not so much.

The prison idea sounds interesting but I know nothing about that.

One thing I forgot to add: if you have a bloody good idea for a project/activity, think about developing that in conjunction with an already established charity. That can be a much more efficient way of getting things done.