Category: Partnerships

Say ‘Hello’ to our Healing Community

September 18, 2025November 19, 2025by Jane WilliamsLeave a comment

As soon as we moved in to our new building – the Grassroots Resource Centre – we had dreams of leveraging this lovely space for our community in exciting and innovative new ways

We invited the Casework Solidarity Forum to hold their event at our building – free of charge.

We invite our wonderful partners – including neighbours Barney Bears Nursery, and our wonderful partners Discover Story – to use our board-room when they need to rehearse new stories or shows.

We gave a home to the incredibly talented women from Gainsborough Quilters – who donate intricate and beautiful quilts for our new baby bags, they come once a month..

But our dreams are still so big – and now one of them is coming true.

Louise Klarnett has been the dance artist in residence at The Magpie Project since January 2019 and witnesses first hand, the effects of traumatic circumstances both, past and ongoing, that the mums and minis who access our services experience.

We started to talk with Louise about how much our mums and minis might benefit from her other expertise – craniosacral therapy.

As we talked this through, Roselle Gillam paediatric osteopath also got involved in discussions.

Our goal was simple: to offer critical and timely support which can be life-changing for the families’ physical and emotional health and wellbeing.

So we set up a clinic whereby Louise’s and Roselle’s wonderful customers (clients/ patients) not only undertake their own healing but contribute towards healing in their community by enabling mothers and babies at risk of homelessness to access treatments too.

So here it is – unveiled – our Healing Community clinics. Find out more about osteopathy and Biodynamic Craniosacral therapy below – and then find out more and book a treatment through Louise and Roselle’s websites.

What is osteopathy?

As described by the General Osteopathic Council Osteopathy is a system of diagnosis and treatment for a wide range of medical conditions. It works with the structure and function of the body and is based on the principle that the well-being of an individual depends on the skeleton, muscles, ligaments and connective tissues functioning smoothly together.

Osteopaths use touch, physical manipulation, stretching and massage to increase the mobility of joints, to relieve muscle tension, to enhance the blood and nerve supply to tissues, and to help the body’s own healing process. They may also provide advice on posture and exercise to aid recovery, promote health and prevent symptoms recurring.

What is craniosacral therapy?

Craniosacral Therapy is a hands-on therapy that uses a light touch and whose origins are in the practice of Osteopathy.

The body has self-healing capabilities and is constantly striving for good health. Craniosacral Therapy can facilitate this natural propensity for balance and a feeling of wellbeing in the client. Craniosacral Therapy recognises the interconnection between mind and body.

Craniosacral therapists work with the presence of subtle rhythmic motions that are expressed within the body (particularly the head, spine and pelvis). The free and balanced expression of these subtle motions is related to our state of health and vitality.

In a typical session the client will lie (or sometimes sit) clothed on a treatment couch. The therapist makes contact by gently placing their hands on the client’s body and uses a light touch to tune into the subtle motions taking place. The therapist can evaluate if there are any imbalances within the body and use a range of non-invasive therapeutic skills to relax and thereby promote self-healing within the client.

Roselle Gillam initially worked as a dance artist prior to becoming an osteopath. She graduated from the European School of Osteopathy and then went on to complete the Diploma in Paediatric Osteopathy at the Osteopathic Centre for Children. She works with Alison Brown and Associates in East London and as Senior Osteopath at the Osteopathic Centre for Children. www.rosellegillam.com

Louise Klarnett is both a dance artist, working in health, community and education, and a biodynamic craniosacral therapist (BCST). She offers BCST treatments for all – pregnant people, new babies, toddlers, children and adults of all ages. Clients access treatments to support a variety of physical and emotional health and wellbeing needs. www.louiseklarnettcraniosacral.com

Book a treatment

The Magpie Project at CCFC

May 9, 2025May 14, 2025by freyachauncyLeave a comment

Last Saturday we joined Clapton Community Football Club at their May day Fundraiser party.

We sold merch, spread awareness about our No Child in a Home Without a Kitchen campaign, and our mums and minis joined us for face painting, bouncy castle, and games.

At every match Clapton community football club run a hygiene bank collection for us. We have a brand new banner, so please look out for it and donate if you are able to!

Grassroots: a new nest for our Magpie Minis

April 2, 2021April 30, 2024by Jane Williams

We have long-outgrown the gorgeous Forest Lane Lodge, and the time for our Magpie Mums and Minis to fly to a new nest is upon us.

We love Forest Lane Lodge, and it has been a wonderful base – it kept us safe and still functioning during lockdown, it nurtured all our dreams, our babies, our emerging projects and activities – but now we are too big for it. It is time to move.

Those of you following our ‘new building saga’ know that we have been trying to secure a new home for a VERY long time – and those of you who have already signed on to help know that you did so years ago. That is why we are checking in, and updating. We have a new building, we are really doing it this time!

The good news

We have found a wonderful building. The Grassroots centre, in Memorial Park, next to West Ham tube.

We are excited because:

There will be SO much more space, including a dedicated play room, kitchen, cafe area, case work offices, meeting rooms, prayer/quiet room, workshop rooms…. basically so many many rooms!
We will have sole use of the building. We will have an outside play areas all to ourselves with planters and (we hope a flower meadow)
The building is situated in a park with good transport links
Our minis will have a private, safe space (indoor and out) to play,
We will have capacity inside to invite all of our beloved professional partners such as, Health Visitors, Family Support workers, Shelter advisers, Praxis, Beauticians, Reiki practitioners, dance artists, artists, theatre practitioners to come, spread out and do their thing.

We are also hoping that the space will allow for a:

Laundrette
Cafe/cooking collective
Community garden
Digital hub, but most important
Chatting, play, controlled chaos and creating minis’ memories and mums’ belonging.

We could also imagine the wider community using the space for:

Hot desking,
Birthday parties,
Evening classes, etc.

It is daunting, and we will need your help because:

The building has been offices and – well – it needs Magpie-ing up. Alongside some essentials that we are missing we also need a whole lot of colour, love, community and creativity poured in to what could be seen as a bit of a concrete shell right now.

To make the building what we dream it could be for our families we need:

Corporate or community groups to volunteer to clean and help us move
Builders/developers to help with fitting and furnishing
Gardeners/landscape artists to help create a beautiful outdoor space
Interior designers to help us imagine an amazing and magical place where mums and minis are centered
Furniture suppliers to help us kit the place out
Kitchen suppliers to help us create a beautiful collective cooking space, or
The money to pay for any of the above that we cannot beg or borrow in-kind.
Outdoor play equipment
Buggy storage and outdoor shed

So here’s where we need your help

We know we ask a lot of you, our beautiful, bountiful community. And here we are asking again, after a period of years where we have all given more than we ever thought possible. But – you know – it’s just so important to show up for our most at risk children and mothers. The brilliant thing is that with a little time and generosity we can, together, make something really beautiful and meaningful happen.

What can you pledge?

We feel as though we need to get an idea of how big our dreams can be. We know – from the amazing support we have had in the past years – that there are many, many of you who help us, answer our call-outs, come to our aid. But it would be great if we get an idea of who is out there and what we an do together.

If you are interested in helping us give our mums and minis a safe, beautiful space to heal, learn and thrive please fill in the pledge form below. Then we will be in touch. If you did this 3 years ago when we thought we were gonna be able to move to a different building (the less said the better!) then we will be in touch too.

Name

Your organisational or professional or group website

What can you help us with(required)

General volunteering

Corporate or community group volunteering

Gardening or landscaping expertise

Design or interiors expertise

Building/carpentry, trades expertise

Project management expertise

Other (please specify below)

If OTHER please specify

What would you like to see the building become during the holidays and evenings?

Do you need to rent space in a community building on any given evening or weekend, what for?

Thank you so much, as always, for being there for our families. We will be in touch, hopefully with good news and a call to action as soon as we can.

NCT partnership way to support Newham’s new mums

January 29, 2021March 11, 2021by Jane WilliamsLeave a comment

A new community partnership will expand the support available for pregnant women and new mums experiencing financial hardship and disadvantage in Newham.

NCT, in partnership with Alternatives Trust East London¹, The Magpie Project and Compost London, has been awarded a £471,000 grant from the Government’s Health and Wellbeing fund.²

The new funding builds on NCT’s well-established Parents in Mind³ project in the borough, funded by Newham Clinical Commissioning Group, which provides trained peer support for women who are socially isolated or experiencing mental health difficulties.

The new partnership will expand support across the borough and offer antenatal education, breastfeeding support, counselling and family link services alongside the existing perinatal peer support service. The project has a strong focus on inclusion and support for pregnant women and new mums of Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds, who experience significant inequalities in outcomes.

Bulon, a Bengali mum and peer supporter for Newham Parents in Mind, said: “There are many people in our community who have no-one to turn to due to language barriers, social issues or poor mental health who just need a friend to hear and understand them.”

Angela McConville, Chief Executive, NCT, said: “I’m delighted our partnership has been able to secure funding for this strong community approach. Together, we can ensure meaningful and impactful support for many more women experiencing significant challenges during pregnancy and early parenthood.

“At NCT we believe in the importance of antenatal and postnatal support for mental health and wellbeing. Our volunteer peer supporters already play an important role in reducing isolation, boosting mental health and supporting women to access services in Newham. This new partnership and community-led approach will further expand this support, and will help address the unacceptable inequalities experienced by Black, Asian and ethnic minority women.”

Jason Strelitz, Director of Public Health, London Borough of Newham, said: “Since inception, NCT has worked collaboratively with Newham’s maternity and Children’s Health Service, supporting partner agencies to connect with and support families. We deeply value the role that our voluntary and community sector partners play in meeting the needs of our community. We see NCT and their consortium of partners as a significant player in helping us realise our ambition to make Newham the best place for children and families.”

Elizabeth Booker, Director, Alternatives Trust East London, said: “Alternatives’ holistic and therapeutic work with vulnerable women around pregnancy and birth has shown us the extent of the unmet need for perinatal education and support in Newham. We are delighted to be collaborating with these excellent partners on this new project. It has the potential to make a huge impact on the wellbeing of women in our borough who do not currently have access to services and give their children a healthy and secure start in life.”

Jane Williams, CEO Founder, The Magpie Project, said: ‘We are over the moon to have the opportunity to work with NCT and local partners Alternatives and Compost London to bring vital perinatal services to mums from migrant or marginalised backgrounds. We are excited by the prospect of a bespoke, targeted and meaningful response to the specific barriers and challenges they face gaining support around childbirth and early motherhood.”

¹ Alternatives Trust East London is a charity that supports the wellbeing of women in east London, particularly around pregnancy and birth. It supports vulnerable new mothers: 98% are recent migrants, and 95% are from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds. Over 80% of families that access Alternatives’ services are homeless. In 2019, Alternatives supported 121 women with 209 children through a combination of practical and therapeutic services.

The Magpie Project is a user-led charity helping women who are homeless or at risk of homelessness with children under five in east London. They support around 250 families a year, offering sessions for children including music, dance, and art. They provide practical support such as food banks, nappies, equipment, and professional support.

Compost London is a team which has been working in capacity building in East London’s voluntary community sector for many years. It will lead on evaluating the programme.

² The Health and Wellbeing Programme is a joint initiative by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), Public Health England (PHE) and NHS England and NHS Improvement. It aims to enable them to work together with the Voluntary Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector to promote equality, improve health inequalities and to help families and communities to achieve and maintain wellbeing.

³ Parents in Mind is a peer-support project run by NCT and funded by Newham Clinical Commissioning Group. Mums taking part showed a statistically significant reduction in anxiety and depression scores and reported feeling less isolated.

• 86% felt the programme helped them feel less isolated and alone
• 86% felt it helped them to know where to get help if they needed it
• 86% felt it provided someone they could talk to who understood them
• 74% felt it helped them to feel more hopeful about the future

Account number	A 10-12 digit number given to your bank account. You can find your account number on your online banking page or on bank statements.
Card Number	A 16-digit number with that is found on the front of your debit/credit card.
Credit Card	A credit card doesn’t spend your money. It spends the bank’s money and you must pay it back. This means you can spend more than is in your account, but you might be charged extra for doing this, especially if you are late paying the bank.
Credit Score	A number that records how likely you are to repay your debts. High credit scores are better as it means financial products such as overdrafts and credit cards cost less.
Debit Card	A debit card is a card that lets you take out money from ATMs and make payments in stores or online from your account.
Financial Service Compensation Scheme (FSCS)	An organisation set up to protect the money you put in bank accounts. If you have a current or basic account, the FSCS will pay you up to £85,000 if your bank goes bankrupt.
National Insurance Number (NI)	The number makes sure that the National Insurance contributions and tax you pay are properly recorded on your account. It also acts as a reference number for the whole social security system.
Overdraft	An amount of money you can spend even when you have no money in your account. It is like a small loan from your bank. Overdrafts are often not free, so you need to be very aware what the costs are before using one.
Personal Identification Number (PIN)	A PIN is a 4-digit number that is given to you with a debit card. This is used when taking out money from ATMs or when making in-store purchases with your card. Never share your PIN with anyone as it could be used to commit fraud.
Security Code	A 3-4 digit number found on the back of your debit/credit card in the signature section. This number will be required for nearly all online payments. The code provides an extra layer of security to safeguard you from fraud.
Sort Code	A 6-digit number that is used to identify your bank. You can find your sort code on your online banking platform, on bank statements or on your debit card.
Standing Order	When a fixed amount that you choose is paid from your account to another person or organisation. This is different from the direct debit as the amount that is paid is the same each time.

Saves time – you don’t need to remember to pay a bill.	You need to make sure there is enough money in your account when the direct debit or standing order will be taken. If there is not enough money, you could be charged extra by the bank.
You will get money back for any incorrect payments for direct debits only.	You must remember to cancel standing orders when you want to stop paying someone regularly.
You can cancel a direct debit or a standing order at any time through your online banking account or by contacting your bank.	Sometimes you might think you are setting up a direct debit, but it is actually a recurring payment or continuous payment authority (CPA). Be careful if companies ask for the long number on your card instead of your sort code and account number. This will mean they can take money whenever they think they are owed.

Saves Time	Make sure there is enough money in your account when the direct debit or standing order will be taken. If there is not enough money, you could be charged extra by the bank.
You don’t need to remember to pay a bill	You must remember to cancel standing orders when you want to stop paying someone regularly.
You will get money back for any incorrect payments for direct debits only.	Sometimes you might think you are setting up a direct debit, but it is actually a recurring payment or continuous payment authority (CPA). Be careful if companies ask for the long number on your card instead of your sort code and account number. This will mean they can take money whenever they think they are owed.
You can cancel a direct debit or a standing order at any time through your online banking account or by contacting your bank.


Magpie Mums say: “Always use direct debits if you can, so you don’t forget to pay and are charged. If you can’t use direct debits, make sure you put the dates when you’re supposed to make payments in your phone calendar.” “I’m used to it. It’s easy on the phone. I try to avoid going to banks.”

Bank Examples	Forms of Identity Needed
Metro Bank	Asylum seekers can apply for a cash account and/or savings account. This requires an Application Registration Card (ARC), proof of address and confirmation of asylum seekers support allowance or other income.
Lloyds	You can apply for a Classic Current account with a BRP, ARC or a Home Office Immigration Status document. Refugees and asylum seekers can apply for a ‘Classic current account’. This includes an arranged overdraft. Fees are charged if you go into your overdraft.
Nationwide	You can get a ‘FlexBasic account’ (basic bank account) and an ‘Instant Access saver’ (basic savings account). They accept BRP, ARC and Home Office Immigration Status document.
HSBC	You cannot open a bank account if you are from outside the EU. They accept BRP but NOT ARC. They accept BRP but NOT ARC.
Monzo	Refugees can open a current account with a BRP and their UK address. However, Monzo do not accept ARC. You can get your benefits or salary (depending on your employer) paid into your Monzo account 1 day earlier.