GC’s Ministry of Justice CRS Personal Wellbeing team in Merseyside delivers support to men under the supervision of the Probation Service around community involvement, emotional wellbeing, physical health, family relationships and Social networks.
Sometimes the team receive donations of mountain bikes from Merseyside Police to enable the team to host cycling groups for service users.
In the lead up to Christmas, the team asked the police if any children’s bikes might be available for donation – which could in turn be donated to the families of service users, who might be short of funds to buy presents for their children.
As it turned out, none of our service users needed them, so the team agreed that these bikes would be donated to charity instead, so eight bikes were donated to the Children’s Charity Merseyside, just prior to Christmas.
Christopher Cheng, Lead Key Worker with the MOJ PWB Service said:
“We donated eight children’s bikes to the Childrens Charity Merseyside i.e. a mixture of boys’ and girls’ bikes at different age ranges. The objective of the charity is to serve the needs of children and young people in Merseyside and surrounding areas. They help children who are in need as a result of ill-health, disability, financial hardship or other disadvantages by providing or assisting in the provision of specialist items and equipment with a view to improve the beneficiaries’ conditions of life.
The charity emailed the team back with the following feedback:
“A massive thank you for the bikes which were delivered today. They are in very good condition and will be much loved and used. I will keep in touch and let you know who has received them and try and send you some photos."
"Once again thank you for thinking of our Charity and thank you on behalf of the children who will have a much better Christmas thanks to your generosity.”
Ben Kelly, Service Manager of the GC Personal Wellbeing team said:
"I couldn’t be prouder of the work that Ian McHale and Christopher Cheng have done in developing our cycling group. They have developed links with a number of partner agencies, including Merseyside Police and HMP Risley/Thorn Cross and the cycling group has helped so many of our service users to address concerns around emotional wellbeing, their lifestyles and helped to address the myriad of concerns around social isolation.
"Having donated a number of children’s bicycles prior to the Christmas period, they have gone above and beyond and made some children in Merseyside very happy!"
