Summer holidays – not always sun, sea and sand

With the summer break just over two thirds of the way through it’s been lovely seeing photos of so many friends and their families having well-earned holidays at home and abroad.  But combined with some recent visits I’ve made it has also led me to reflect on the wider experiences of this period in the year

The preferred perception of summer holidays is, as alluded to, one of happy family times, adventures, days out, exploring new places and welcome breaks from the normal routine of long working days and the relentless ‘pinging’ of the e-mail inbox

However there is another side to school holidays, and in particular the longer summer one. A lack of access to free school meals for the children leads to extra pressure to find ways to feed the family. A lack of routine results in the loss of security that comes with that routine. The holidays become a concentrated block of time with none of the usual support systems. The summer break is a time of apprehension for those transitioning from one school to the next, and that apprehension can manifest in many and varied ways. The holidays are also a time of peer pressure to take part in holiday activities – days out, weekend breaks etc that they can ill afford, and that result in debt racking up. The holidays can be a time when the fracturedness of family life comes to the fore.

Last week I went to visit a friend who was leading a summer camp for 40 local children ages 9 – 12. Of those 40, local churches sponsored at least 12 of them because their families couldn’t afford to pay the camp fee themselves. For many of the children, it was their first time away from home, for others it was the furthest they had been from home, even at just 45 miles or so. As I watched and joined in with them exploring the woods, trying out the homemade waterslide, blasting prayer rockets skywards, posing for the photo-shoot and preparing for tent inspection, it was clear what a fun adventure this was for all the children, but for some of them it was also the absolute highlight of the long, ‘boring’ break from school.

In Bulgaria this week a team from the Salisbury, affiliated to the Trussell Trust, are running a summer camp for ex-orphanage young people. The camp is run in conjunction with FSCI (Foundation for Social Change and Inclusion) which CRED is forging a partnership with, and whom I visited a couple of weeks ago.

One of FSCI’s main projects is setting up Houses of Opportunity for young people who have spent their lives living in orphanages but on reaching 18 yrs old have become to old for the orphanages and so are forced to leave. With no preparation given to them on how to live life outside of an institution, and yet with access to a standard care-leaving pot of about £1500, these young people can find themselves adrift and very vulnerable to those who want to take advantage of them, and their money, including pimps and traffickers.

The FSCI Houses are a safe haven, and allow the young person to stay for 2 years whilst they finish their education, get some training and a job, and also learn basic skills for life – cooking, shopping, budgeting and independent living.

The summer camps are an opportunity for the young people from all the FSCI Houses to come together for mutual support and to learn more deeply life skills and skills for life. They are a chance for exploring and processing their thoughts on the way forward, for having some extra mentoring and guidance, and most of all for them to have an actual summer holiday – something that is so ordinary to many of us, but is a new concept to these young people.

Another family that I met whilst in Bulgaria gave another view on the summer break (which is 3 months long starting at the end of May and running through until early September). They are a Roma family, living on the edge of a small town, and very much marginalized by many in the community. They live in a very run-down, two room structure that has plastic bags and sacks filling the many holes in the walls and roof. They cook outside in the summer but in the winter bring the wood-burning stove inside as it is the only source of heat. The family comprises an alcoholic dad, an abused mum, 5 girls ages 16 – 9 and a boy age 5. The youngest son, age 3, lives at an orphanage as the family just weren’t able to look after him, but they’d dearly love to have him back.

For this family, 3 months without school means 3 months when the children don’t get a guaranteed meal in the day. Life is a massive struggle for them all the time, but to be without the access to breakfast and lunch for the children is a huge extra burden on the parents – enough to drive dad further to drink with all the possible outcomes of that.

The family can’t afford child care, so the youngest children either fend for themselves, or are looked after by the oldest girl whilst the mother and the other older girls go in search of seasonal work. For this family, and others like them, summer holidays are certainly not a string of carefree days, lie-ins or days out.

For many families in the UK, the 5 – 6 week summer break from school is too short, and it whizzes by far too quickly. But for others it is plenty long enough, and the thought of the children going back to school, with all the security, routine and support it provides, cannot come soon enough.

As we enter the final week or so of  the summer holidays, may it be a positive time for all, and a time when a few extra special memories are made.