We make kids’ lives better
Tesco magazine: July/August, 2005

Meet three inspiring women who, spurred on by their own experiences, are working to make sure children get the most out of life.

‘I help poorly children to smile again’
Lucy Cheetham, also known as Loubylou, has followed in her father’s big, floppy footsteps and become a clown. She works as a ‘Clown Doctor’ two days a week at Manchester’s Pendlebury and Booth Hall hospitals. Married mum-of-one Lucy is 24 and lives in Leigh, near Manchester.

‘Sometimes I forget how many heads turn when I come walking down the ward in my clown costume. The reaction is amazing it’s like bringing in a ray of sunshine. A good laugh really does make the children feel better, it’s instant pain relief.

‘I went to intensive care to see a little girl recently. She was on all sorts of machines and had a tube in her mouth so couldn’t speak or smile. I played a song to her, made a few silly squeaky noises and gave her a balloon toy. It was impossible to tell whether she enjoyed having me there, but last week a nurse chased me down the hall and said that the same little girl wanted to see me again. So I guess it did help a bit.

‘The teenagers act like they’re too cool to join in the fun at first, but then they start smiling and you know you’ve got them. Sometimes, all you get from the little ones is a cheeky grin. I’ve had parents say to me, “Thank you, my child hasn’t smiled in weeks.’

‘My dad still works as a clown, called Trumble, and he’s very proud of me. From as young as six, I used to dress up in a little clown outfit and be his assistant. I never thought I could be as good; he can hold an audience of 200 kids. I’d love it if my child followed in my footsteps, it’s such a lovely, rewarding job. It’s great for kids to have a good giggle whether they’re sick or not.’

‘I’ve learnt you have to listen to kids’ needs’
When Cathy Phelan was just 13 years old, a social worker asked her to make a stark decision: choose between her Father and her Mother. It was the toughest time of her life, but this sad experience made her vow to work with children – and to try to understand them better. Cathy, 40, now works for the NSPCC. She lives in London with her son, Oisin, 2.

‘I’ll never forget sitting there next to my mother, and the social worker asking me who I wanted to live with, my Mum or my Dad. I was absolutely horrified, I remember thinking, ‘how can you put me in this position, I’m just a kid!’
‘How could I tell my Mother that I didn’t want to live with her? It was heart-rending. If the social worker had talked to me on my own she could have helped me to make the right choice that would have prevented a lot of heartache later on in my life.

‘The experience made me determined to do that social worker’s job – only to do it much better. I had a difficult time after Mum left, I ran away and dropped out of school. But some years later, I decided to turn things around. So I marched into a college in Hackney determined to get an education and start working to help children.

‘It’s so important that children in need are consulted on a one-to-one basis. I work for the NSPCC Helpline, which means I can give children advice. We get calls about all sorts of things from bullied children to adults concerned about a child’s home life.

‘People think ,“You’re just on the phone”, but the job’s not that easy because you don’t have visual signs, such as body language, to help you judge situations. Sometimes, the circumstances are clear. A boy I was speaking to recently had the phone ripped out of his hand by his violent mother but I’d already got their phone number so could get the police onto it straight away. It’s sometimes difficult, but, like any job, you get used to it.

‘I think that my experiences as a young person help me to understand children. At school I was an absolute horror because I was bullied at home, so I have a good vantage point. When a bullied child calls me about how to deal with the situation, I explain that I know how he or she is feeling and that they can trust me, and we work out a plan to end the bullying. If it doesn’t work, they can call back and we’ll come up with something else. ‘I don’t think that you need to have gone through what I did to do my job well, but it is important to be able to feel empathy for children.’

‘I find loving homes for children’
Sally Heaven-Richards, 42, finds mums and dads for children who need a family. As the manager of a Midlands-based adoption project for children’s charity NCH, Sally, from Birmingham, works hard to make kids’ futures bright. She knows adoption works – she and her husband Hunter have an adopted daughter of their own.

‘It breaks my heart to know that there are children out there who desperately need to be part of a real family– to be cherished by parents who love them. In my job at the NCH I find families to adopt children who, for one reason or another, have not been able to find homes through their local authority.

‘It is hard, often emotionally draining, work. Adoption is of course for life, so when we match a child and a family, we have to get it right. But knowing that children will be safe and secure is a fantastic feeling.

‘I see the entire process through, carrying out many of the checks on prospective parents and matching children’s needs to what they can offer. At NCH we don’t apologise for being so stringent. It’s far too important.
‘I stay in touch with families after a child has been placed with them – we often bump into each other at awareness events.

‘When I see a child – or children in some cases – looking so happy, beaming and holding their new parents’ hands, I know it has all been worthwhile. The kids now have a great shot at life and their adopted family has usually fallen madly in love with their little one.

‘It was an easy decision for my husband and I to adopt because we knew that there was a real need for mixed-race families. We adopted Jemma when she was a baby– she’s nine now. Our eldest Ricky is 13 and our youngest Leo is three. They get on like any other brothers and sisters and Jemma is a wonderful, happy daughter. We love them all so much.