FLIP Family Support Volunteer Team
The Family Learning and Integration Project (FLIP) is a Barnardo’s family community working to support BAME families in South Belfast. They promote early learning, integration in the community and assist with access to a variety of cultural opportunities. The group started five years ago with just one volunteer and now have a team of six volunteers who have built capacity within the very culturally diverse community of South Belfast which is centred around two primary schools.
Some of the volunteers are previous service users who now want to give back and they span a range of ages, religions and ethnicities, speaking 5 languages between them. The diversity in the team means that members of the local BAME community can identify with someone who can help them. The staff team could not run the activities that they do without the time, energy and commitment of the volunteers, especially during the coronavirus pandemic when they have adapted the activities so that they can continue online.
The team put on a Volunteer Activity morning at the school, designed to show parents what volunteering could look like to them in the hope that they will feel encouraged to volunteer. The team have made an outstanding contribution to equality, diversity and inclusion as many of these parents had previously felt isolated, experiencing language and cultural barriers from the local school population.