Meet Zelda

Zelda is a Children and Family's worker at Hestia. Her role focuses on building positive and supportive relationships with women and their children in our refuges. This includes empowering them to work towards their goals, creating, implementing and reviewing personalised support plans in collaboration with service users and external agencies whilst advocating on their behalf when needed.

We sat down with Zelda to discuss her experience working as a Children and Family's worker at Hestia.

Some of the families we meet when they come into refuge have had a very difficult and chaotic time and some of the children are very emotional. It’s about getting to know them and making them feel safe. The other day, one of the new children I met was crying but as soon as I gave him his welcome toy and smiled at him, he relaxed. After a bit of time playing, he wanted me to go with him and his mum, so he’d started to trust me. I find that if I’m relaxed then the children start to learn to relax too. This little boy was only two years old, but he was already anxious because of his dad’s behaviour. 

When we are working with the children in our refuges, we use play a lot and sometimes you just need to be a bit silly and then they relax. I will sing songs with them, paint, do puzzles and silly games – at first, it’s about getting their attention and getting them to trust you. 

One family that I supported, the mum was pregnant when they came into the refuge and the oldest daughter, who was nine years old, clearly felt very responsible for the new baby...our work together was about breaking the traits she’d formed because of the pressure to look after her family – she had to learn to be a child again.

One family that I supported, the mum was pregnant when they came into the refuge and the oldest daughter, who was nine years old, clearly felt very responsible for the new baby. Because of the situation the mum had had no prenatal checks and didn’t know how many weeks pregnant she was. The nine-year-old was very concerned about her mum and her siblings. She was also translating for her mum so she was aware of far more than a child normally would and it was a lot for her. In our first session together, she got up after five minutes and said she needed to check on her mum. I said to her ‘your mum is fine, stay and play some games and have some time to be a child and have fun’ and she started crying and said, ‘no-one has ever said that to me before’. So, our work together was about breaking the traits she’d formed because of the pressure to look after her family – she had to learn to be a child again. She’s doing great now. And it’s not just about supporting the child – in that case it was also about supporting the mum so that she felt able to parent her children again and set boundaries. She needed to get her confidence back, be a mum and feel able to make decisions again after years of coercive control by her partner. 

Another child I was working with was really struggling with anxiety and was having a lot of night sweats. At first, when we started our sessions she was very shy and very closed off. But over time, she’s realised that this is a safe space and by being a bit silly with her and playing games she has relaxed and is making great progress. She said to me the other day, ‘Zelda you’re funny’ and it’s the best compliment I could get! 

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