The before and after shots of Amelia's bedroom. Images: Childhood Trust/ Brooke Murphy
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Three-year-old Amelia bounces with excitement as her mum opens the door to her brand-new pink and fairy-themed bedroom. ‘Oh!’ is her initial reaction, confusion scrunched on her face, before she starts running around, noticing the details in the room. There are the fairy wings she immediately puts on. The tiny fairy doll she calls an angel. A blue ukulele. The Peppa Pig drawing on a little glass whiteboard.
Katherine Pooley (left) and Josephine McCartney (right). Image: Brooke Murphy
“I don’t know if my little one’s had any surprises like this before,” her mum Maria says. Both of their names have been changed to protect their identities. “I hadn’t said she was going to get a new room.”
This is part of Transforming Spaces, a community outreach programme run by London-based charity The Childhood Trust, who work with pro bono interior design partner Katharine Pooley to create bedrooms for children in poverty. Their goal is to make inspiring, safe spaces where children can feel free to play, learn, sleep peacefully and grow.
“It is a space that they can call theirs,” says Josephine McCartney, chief executive of The Childhood Trust. “It’s a space they can be proud of and feel safe in. Some of the case studies that we hear is that it is just that somebody cares.”
This year, Transforming Spaces will work on 55 projects, with more than 350 volunteers involved.
It is not just about making a room look exciting, it is also about making them practical for families. Amelia shares the small bedroom with her 10-year-old sister for part of the week so it has to work for both of them with enough storage space and places for them both to sleep.
Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
“The room’s a funny shape so I didn’t know how to space it out. I’ve got to try to have a lot of storage because I’ve got both the girls, and we’ve got their toys and stuff,” Maria says.
“I’m just not very imaginative so I just didn’t really know what to do. I go round other people’s houses and I see their storage options and I think: ‘That’s cool but I don’t think I could do that.’ So it was about getting everything in that room.”
Design for Amelia’s bedroom in watercolour. Image: Katherine Pooley Ltd
The team of volunteer designers used a trundle bed, which has an extra sleeping space which can be pulled out quickly and easily.
“The design that Katharine’s team has created gives space,” McCartney says. “It’s beautiful, but it also has a bed that you can just pull out. It means they have a lovely bedroom together without it feeling like they’re just moving things around. It’s been designed in a way to maximise the space.”
Katharine Pooley says that storage is regularly a challenge in family homes. People may be unable to afford items of furniture like wardrobes or drawers, and they may have stored their belongings in bags. Sometimes children have no beds, or the bed they are sleeping in is damaged. Amelia’s room didn’t have curtains before or a desk for the girls to do homework or draw.
Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
It’s the little touches which make the room so special. Image: Brooke Murphy
Transforming Spaces provides a fresh coat of paint, essential furniture – such as a bed, mattress, wardrobe, desk, chair and storage – as well as soft bedding, curtains or blinds, and personal touches for comfort.
“I think the thing about all of the families that we support, they are families that really don’t have anything, and they don’t have some of the basics,” McCartney says. “They won’t necessarily have the right bed. They certainly won’t have bedding, curtains. They won’t necessarily have lampshades, all the things that you would just assume that surely every child has. I think people often struggle to get their head around the level of poverty in London and what that means for families.”
Pooley’s team and The Childhood Trust consult with the family to create a design inspired by the child’s preferences. There have been Spider-Man bedrooms, outer space bedrooms, and rooms full of flowers and rainbows.
Volunteers working hard to get the room ready in just one day. Image: Brooke Murphy
It works on a referral basis, meaning that the families most in need of support get the help they need. Families are referred to the programme by social services, schools, or other organisations working directly with families.
But with one in three children living in poverty in London, McCartney says they get “more referrals than we could possibly meet demand for”.
“There is so much demand for this kind of programme,” she adds. “It’s managing logistics and what it takes to get it right, because we want to get it right.”
Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
Katherine Pooley’s team in the bedroom. Image: Brooke Murphy
McCartney says that seeing the excitement on children’s faces after their bedrooms have been redesigned “makes it all worth it”, “all the challenges that come with making something like this happen, getting volunteers together and making sure we’ve got everything ready, working with the families, doing the designs, ordering all of the materials”.
“When you see the kids come and see their bedrooms, it really is transformational. It makes a huge difference. It is life changing,” she says.
For Maria, she feels it will make an enormous difference to her girls’ life and wellbeing.
“It means that the kids have got a nice environment to chill in after school and nursery,” Maria says. “Before, I know they didn’t really enjoy being in there. It wasn’t somewhere that they were excited to play in or bring their friends home to. It will be really nice to see their excitement and joy about their room.”
Find out more about the Transforming Spaces programme and how to refer a family here.Find out how to support the Childhood Trust through the ‘Support Us’ section of the website, with details of how to donate here.
