Reading Heroes: Looking back at 2020

In the latest update from the Reading Heroes project, Hope McGarry from the Children and Young People team takes a look-back at 2020 with some good news from the year.

We are incredibly proud to share what the Reading Heroes project achieved in 2020 with the support of Children in Need and The Prince of Wales’ Charitable Foundation, two of our vital funding partners.

In total, 60 Looked After Children benefited from the project during the year.

As part of our project evaluation, we ask each child to complete their own survey – we found that 39 of the 60 children taking part demonstrated improved confidence and self-esteem, with most children specifically mentioning ‘their volunteer’ as one of the best things about Reading Heroes.

It was just lovely to read comments like “Reader is kind and patient and makes reading fun and exciting”. This is an absolute credit to all of our wonderful Reading Heroes volunteers who truly make a difference to the lives of the children they read with. We are looking forward to training more volunteers this year, and starting up more life-changing reading pairs.

The Reading Heroes project is a Children in Need and Prince of Wales’ Charitable Trust funded project that matches trained volunteers to read one to one with Looked After Children aged between 5 and 15, either in their homes or in school. If you’d like to find out more about getting involved with Reading Heroes, please contact readingheroes@thereader.org.uk