Quotes from Recipients
For a full LIST OF RECIPIENT TEAMS up to December 2023
Your donations of puppets and monsters can make a huge difference to many people. Read what the actual workers who help children on a day-to-day basis say:
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Louise– Children’s Therapist – SV2, Derbyshire, supporting survivors of sexual violence.
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We are absolutely blown away with our packages! Thank you so much, we can see how these monsters are going to be so useful for the children we work with. Thank you, they are amazing! Everyone who has seen them so far is so excited!!!
Gina, Child Protection social worker,Leeds Therapeutic Social Work Team
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I just want to say, you are an amazing organisation and all you knitters out there are truly special wonderful people! Thank you so much for your hard work. I have used my worry monsters in so many of my sessions with children to help them to talk about really difficult things, they love them and they are now a really important part of my work!
Jude, Independent Counsellor in schools and a hospice in Weston-Super-Mare.
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The puppets have arrived and they are absolutely amazing, and have exceeded my expectations. I am really looking forward to using them with the children I work with. Thank you so much to you and your team for the fantastic work you do to help others. All of your hard work is very much appreciated. Kind regards, Jude
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Elly – Child Therapist, Derbyshire
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I am so impressed with this work you have set up. The idea and the items that are produced are absolutely excellent. I wanted to request a hand puppet of a police man which is not smiling and a puppet to represent a professional but I can see that you have been inundated with requests from social work teams so this may not be possible.
I am an art therapist, I work within a primary school with children who have experienced domestic violence, family separation, have worries and struggle with mainstream education. I also have a private practice where I work with children who have been sexually abused, are looked after in foster care or residential homes and also children who have experienced loss or separation. I use puppets regularly for the children to explore their stories in a way that feels safe for them, consider the reactions of others and learn about communication and expression. The type of puppets that your skilled volunteers produce are just not available anywhere.
Elly after receiving them
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The puppets have arrived! I am overwhelmed by the variety, the skills involved and the designs of the puppets. I am so excited to be able to offer these to the children I work with and see the stories we make. I feel very privileged to be able to have this in my therapy kit. It’s a fantastic project – lots and lots of luck for the years to come and thank you to you and your talented makers.
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Lucy, Child Counsellor, Special School, Ormskirk, Lancs,
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I just wanted to thank you for the amazing Worry Monsters which arrived today. They truly are very special and will make a huge difference to the children in our School. Many of your children have a diagnoses of Autism and/or communication difficulties. These Worry Monsters offer such a natural way for the children to express their feelings which they can often find difficult to articulate, especially our children with additional needs. Many Thanks.
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Sophie, Special School, Wrexham
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Dear Clare, firstly I'd like to say that what this organisation is doing is just wonderful and it makes me wish that I could knit! I am an Occupational Therapist working in a school for children aged 6-16 with complex Social, Emotional and Mental Health challenges. Lots of our students have experienced unimaginable things and I am forever in awe of them; the fact most get up every morning to face the day and come to school - which is often their safe place. We have a number of young people who struggle to articulate their feelings, often relying on those adults who know them well to support them through their understanding of how they feel, and find strategies to help them process those difficult emotions. I think the worry monsters have the potential to have a huge impact on our young people, a way of removing the worry from their minds and to not get into the dangerous spiral of ruminating on that worry, under the guidance of myself and our other therapists. We would love to be added to worry monsters waiting list - thank you so much.
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Kerry, Independent Child Therapist, Kettering
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Wow wow wow! I’ve just opened the parcel and I am ecstatic and so privileged to have received them!
Please send my many thanks to the beautiful people that make these. If you are looking for people to help make more please let me know and I will pass on the details to the local WI.
Again... thank you with all my heart, these will be a greatly used resource in my play therapy practice xxx
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Clair, ELSA (Emontional Literacy Support Assistant, Dorchester, Dorset.
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Thank you so, so much!!!!!!!!
I was blown away by these amazing worry dolls, these will be invaluable to my practice and I cannot thank you enough for such a wonderful resource. The dolls will help many of our 450 children here and please keep my name on the list!!!! I am happy to take anything you have spare, as a full time Emotional Literacy Support Assistant and trainee Counsellor, these dolls are pure gold to me. Thank you again for your hard work and kindness, it is so appreciated.
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Tanya, Children’s Involvement team, Sheffield
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My team and I want to say a HUGE THANK you for the lovely worry monsters you sent to us! They are incredible! You do such an amazing job and the kids we work with love them!. Thank you so muchl
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Bernie, Nurture Specialist, Primary school, Swindon
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Please send a HUGE thank you to all your volunteer knitters for the fantastic set of worry monsters you gave us! They are amazing and I have already been able to use them working with a child whose parents split up over the Christmas holidays and another who is a selective mute and was able to use the monsters to help her communicate her feelings! Thank you so much for such a wonderful resource!
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Fostering Support worker
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Fantastic Clare! Just opened the 2 packets of Worry Eaters. We Fostering Support Workers are so very grateful , the worry eaters and puppets will massively enhance our 1-1 work with young children. Thank you so much for your generosity.
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Tracy, ELSA, Primary School, Dorchester, Dorset
I just wanted to let you know I have received the puppets. I was completely and totally bowled over when I opened the box!! I just cannot thank you enough. The puppets are all absolutely amazing! Thank you so so much. Please send my thanks to your team too. What an amazing charity you are.
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Ann, Family Support Worker, Lancashire
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OMG. I have received my worry monsters, I have tears in my eyes, they are amazing and will be so useful in helping the children that I work with. You are so very clever. Thank you so much. I will forward a donation to help with resources. Ann x
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A Children’s Advocate with York City Council Advocacy and Participation team
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I’ve received the parcel and have already shared half of these across two different services – they are greatly appreciated ... please pass our thanks to the knitters for giving their time to create such wonderful puppets.
I have to add - your puppets have just been spotted by our social work teams could I up my request by another 25 (I’d ask for 50 but don’t want to appear greedy) these are to be distributed between:
3 Children's social work teams, 3 Children's assessment teams, 3 Child in need teams, Health and Disability team and Short breaks service
Lauren, Social Worker in Child Protection, Sheffield
I’ve noticed that a lot of my colleagues have these and have raved about how useful they are in direct work. I can use theirs until mine comes through so a waiting list is no trouble at all. We are all in awe of the lovely people who make these.
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Sheffield East Social Work team
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Just wanted to let you know how well received the puppets have been and that they are being used. I have used them with some children in life story work, a colleague has been using them with a child as part of adoption preparation work and another colleague has been using the worry monsters in working with some children where there are concerns about domestic abuse in the household. Having the people hand puppets with different ethnicities has been particularly useful. I wanted to pass on thanks to the knitters and let them know their hard work is much appreciated.
Ellen, Social worker, Child Protection team
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Thank you so much for making contact with me, I came into the office today having been away at another office and the first thing I asked was whether the Knit-for-Nowt parcel had arrived. I cant wait to get started with them.
I have discussed your question with various professionals in the team and they think that it would be a good idea to have a doll with a head scarf / burka, this is a hugely important cultural diversity issue and having an understanding from the child’s perspective of what the scarf and burka represents to their culture can be an ice breaking exercise.
I was thinking of other ideas like faces with expressions on sad, happy, scared, worries etc as we use emotions to gauge how a child is experiencing their home life / school / even contact with a professional.
I think I could get so carried away as I am so enthusiastic about the work you are undertaking
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I manage an advocacy project for children within child protection processes in Sheffield Local Authority. We work one to one with children to enable them to open up about their lives and to talk about any what’s going well and what they would like to change. The information is then fed into the child protection meeting by us (as the child can’t attend) and as such their voice is heard and contributes to the plan to support the family in difficult times.
As you can imagine, our work is very much play-based and we use a number of tools and techniques to make the work as painless as possible for the children, some of whom are as young as 4 and 5 years old.
I was speaking to a social worker yesterday who showed me the amazing hand puppets that you make and I wondered if it would be possible to have some for our project so our advocates could use them with the children they work with? A lot of the work is based on discussions of family members – I saw there was a set of ‘people’ that would be great, but we’d be open to anything you think might be helpful. The animal ones also would work well as children love animals and even if it’s not the focus of our discussion, it’s helpful to have some play time during the chats which as you can imagine can be quite difficult for the children.
Sheffield Fostering Support worker
Just got the puppets WOW!
Really can’t thank you enough… lots of interest from other members of staff...! Will be taking the puppets to ...the Fostering Women's Support Group tonight. Please pass on my grateful thanks to the amazingly talented ‘Knit for Nowts’
Sheffield Children's Involvement Manager
We have received the puppets and they’re BRILLIANT!!
A colleague took some out yesterday to do some work with a child and said they worked really well – they had a lot of fun with them talking about a really difficult topic. So a great big thank you to you and all your knitters, we’re very grateful!!
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