Haven Domestic Abuse Service

By the time a parent has added up travel, tickets and lunch, a summer day out can be over before it begins.

For families living in refuge, those costs can decide whether children get to go at all. Many families arrive at Haven Domestic Abuse Service in Lincolnshire with very little. Some have left homes where money, food shopping, cooking and everyday choices were controlled by someone else.

A Cash for Kids Holiday Hunger Grant helped Haven remove that barrier over the summer holidays.

What the grant enabled

The funding paid for a coach, entry tickets and food for packed lunches, so 17 families and 38 children could spend a day together at ROAR Dinosaur Land. Haven also ran cookery sessions with children in refuge during the holidays.

“I could never have afforded to take my children somewhere like this on my own,” a mum said. “Seeing them laughing, running around, and just being kids again was priceless. It gave us a day to feel like a ‘normal family’.”

The funding removed the costs that would usually sit behind a day like this: the journey, the tickets, the food. Children had somewhere to run around. Lunch was provided. Parents did not have to work out what else would need to be cut back.

The cookery sessions gave children the chance to prepare food, try new things and spend time with others in refuge. Parents were also supported with budgeting and making healthy meals go further.

The difference you made

For some families affected by domestic abuse, food can be tied to control. It may have been restricted, monitored or used as another way to create fear and dependence. Cooking together cannot undo that. But it can give children and parents a different experience of food: choosing, preparing, serving and eating together.

This funding did not remove the impact of domestic abuse, or the pressures of refuge life. Parents are still rebuilding safety and routine. Children may still need time and specialist support.

But it meant children had food, activity and a day out during the summer holidays. For one mum, it meant seeing her children laughing, running around and, for a few hours, being “just kids again”.