Working in Newham’s Family Navigator service might seem like a thankless task, with around 20 families and individuals a day bringing their problems with housing, health, child care, education or benefits.
But for Vivian and Fasreen – who make up 50% of the team co located in either East Ham Library, or the Shipman Youth Zone, nothing could be further from the truth.
“I’ve lived in Newham for 25 years, and in the past two that I’ve worked for the Family Navigator team, I’ve been the proudest. People stop me in the street to say thank you, or cross the road to let me know how I’ve helped, “said Vivian. “I see thousands of people a year, and often I don’t recognise them later on, but that’s what really keeps me going.”
The Family Hub Navigators support Children and Families from pre-birth up to the age of 18 or, if they have Special Needs, to the age of 25. People who drop in could need help with food, housing, getting their child a school place, or with benefits or parenting skills.
“Often people who come to us are in a really bad situation. On one occasion we had a mother and her children who were experiencing domestic violence. They arrived just as we were closing with their suitcases. We stayed open and managed to find them safe accommodation that night, “said Vivian. “The mother was so grateful, she said to me ‘I thought I’d be sleeping on the streets with my kids tonight’.”
The families often arrive with one problem and it takes a skilled Navigator to search out what the issues really are. “One of the benefits of our service is that we all speak at least two languages, and that means we can talk to the people who come to us in their own language,” said Fasreen, who is actually fluent in three languages.
And if the teams’ command of languages fails them, their team leader has even found an innovative – and free – app which uses AI to directly translate less common languages which might present themselves.
Whatever the situation, the team are always looking for ways that the families who visit them can improve their lives. “We often refer people to parenting skills classes, or into ways that they can improve their own skills and start to get back into work or volunteering,” said Fasreen.
So successful have they been, that there are a number of former customers who came to the service for help who through their efforts, are now themselves supporting families, volunteering in foodbanks or providing support to communities in other parts of the council or borough, helping even more people in the ways they have been helped themselves.
