Interviewer

So firstly, could I ask your name?

Antony Stephenson

Yes, it’s Antony Stephenson. Antony without an H, Stephenson with a P,H.

Interviewer

Thank you. Which organisation are we talking about today?

Antony Stephenson

The Avenue Baptist Church Child Contact Centre.

Interviewer

Brilliant. And could I ask how old you are, Antony?

Antony Stephenson

Yes, 56 at the moment, but when this goes out it will be 57 I guarantee.

Interviewer

Excellent. So what brings you into involvement with this organisation? Right.

Antony Stephenson

I’ve been here for six or seven years. I want to work with children with mental health issues. So I thought getting as wide an experience of different children as possible, and obviously here with family breakups, and sometimes the children obviously used as pawns in that game and it’s useful background to see how it works, and how the children interact with the two different parents.

Interviewer

So this is what brought you into it six or seven years ago? But you’re still here?

Antony Stephenson

Still here. Because it’s something that you can see makes a huge difference. It makes a huge difference to the child. You can see we just had a struggle getting one young man in to the room to see his father. He didn’t really want to, but as soon as he makes the step through the two doors and sees Dad, he runs over to him and will play for the next hour. And so that fear of somebody you’ve not seen that’s not been around in your life for a long time, that disappears, and you can imagine the kind of relationship they could go on to have.

Interviewer

What sort of age of children are we talking about?

Antony Stephenson

Oh, it goes from four months to 16, I think is the oldest that we’ve had, but you need to check that because I’m not a hundred percent sure, but it is, it is all age ranges. I guess the most common would be about eight, nine.

nterviewer

Okay. And we’ve seen more volunteers who are ladies than men. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Do you think it helps having men volunteers as part of the mix here?

Antony Stephenson

Yes, I do. I did some work experience in a nursery and it was really interesting because while the children had all sorts of different names for the women staff, for me they could only come up with ‘Daddy’. So to see men in different positions to the ones that they’re used to, yes. And see them in a caring, sort of nurturing role as well, that’s, I think something that’s very beneficial for them.

Interviewer

And do you find that Dads tend to gravitate to you as well?

Antony Stephenson

Not really, No. Both. It’s, it seems very straight down the middle. Both…I think the one really good thing is both parents recognise you’re trying to do the best thing that you can, and obviously we’re trying to do the best thing for the child, but to keep them on side as well. So I don’t know whether it’s the way we approach it or, or the way the parents view it. But it, it’s, yes, it’s very split, but we have lots of chats with either Dad or Mum or Grandma, if it’s a Grandparent coming to visit their child. And just trying, the aim is to put the child at the centre and their welfare is the priority.

Interviewer

And out of interest, do service users identify with a particular volunteer? And so will home in on that one?

Antony Stephenson

My main job is running, which is taking the parents into the room when they arrive to see the child, and then taking the child in. So I don’t really have as much contact with parents, say as people who are in the room, but you sit and talk to them when they’re waiting to leave. You talk to them on the way in with the father who was just waiting to see his child who wouldn’t go in. Keeping him updated saying that they are here, but he’s struggling a bit at the moment. Yes. It’s a, it is a very, I was going to say professional relationship, but it, I think the most important thing is it’s empathetic. We understand what they, or try and understand, what they must be going through.

Interviewer

I can see that it could be a very stressful situation and, people who keep calm must be important in all of this?

Antony Stephenson

Yes. It can be very stressful. A couple of incidents that that we’ve had that you, you have thought about afterwards and you, you are always trying to think of different ways that you can approach things. You know, especially with handovers and children that are reluctant to go in is, you know, if you give them a scooter to go into the room, will that make a difference? If you give them a toy car, will that make a difference? Does getting a bar of chocolate and saying, why don’t you go and eat this with Daddy, make a difference? So yes, it’s, it keeps you on your toes.

Interviewer

Excellent. And develops new skills, I’m sure.

Antony Stephenson

Yes. And I, I I work in a school as well, so Yes. It’s, it’s interesting to see the kind of home life of kids here and you know, you see them none that come here, go to school. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, but yes.

Interviewer

Yes. Yes.

Antony Stephenson

It is fascinating stuff.

Interviewer

Yes, absolutely. People’s lives are complicated, aren’t they?

Antony Stephenson

People’s lives are very complicated. Yes. Yes. Definitely.

Interviewer

Excellent. Now before you came in to see me, was there anything that you thought you’d like to tell us that you haven’t had the chance to

Antony Stephenson

Say? No, I haven’t. No. Just, it was interesting when it was explained this morning and the, the fact that you said it’s not very high profile and you’re thinking it should have a much bigger profile, but obviously because of the nature of what we do, we can’t really advertise it. But you get lots of great feedback from the parents. We had one recently who bought in, I think it was about two Sainsbury carrier bags full of chocolate, sweets and biscuits to say thank you. And we get thank you cards from the kids. You, it’s something where you really make a difference and, and it’s something that needs to happen as well. Mm-Hmm. There needs to be the opportunity for parents to see children that they don’t live with.

Interviewer

Well, obviously by the time I’ve got to my stage in life, we’ve got friends who’ve got divorced, et cetera, et cetera. Yes. And, and you know, sometimes I’m surprised at how well that goes. And sometimes I’m surprised at how badly that goes. And, you know, sometimes kids are, are stuck in the middle and, and equally I’ve got friends who were parents, they haven’t seen parents, they’ve ended up at, you know, we are a very similar age. We’ve ended up with some baggage in life because they didn’t get to see that other parent.

Antony Stephenson

Yes. And that’s, I think that’s what we try and subtly say to the parents is, effectively, your child is eight years old, you two don’t live with each other. You are both going to be in that child’s life for at least the next 20 odd years. You need to find a way to make it work because they’re going to graduate, they’re going to get married, there’s going to be christening, there’s going to be new families, all that kind of thing. You’re both want to be involved. So just think of that and try and get on for the child’s benefit.

Interviewer

Excellent. So thank you ever so much. Really, really appreciated your time.

Antony Stephenson

No problem. Thank you.