It is with great sadness that we have to report the passing of Thomas’s mother, Estella, on October 8, 2018.

It was a huge shock when Tom was killed in January 2006, but Estella’s faith and resilience helped us cope with the tragedy. When Linklaters suggested a Memorial Trust for Tom she embraced the idea, and has worked enthusiastically as a Trustee from the beginning. She took a keen interest in every one of the projects supported by the Trust, visiting as many as possible.
Highlights included the opening of Tom’s Farm at Nightingale School in 2009 and being given an Outstanding Achievement award by St Giles Trust in April 2016.  Being a musician she took a particular interest in championing the Bursary Winners at the Midi Music Company in Lewisham.
 
Estella was born on April 11, 1943 at Oxhey, Herts. After school, where she passed Grade 8 on the piano, she trained as a primary school teacher at Froebel College, Roehampton. Her first appointment was at a school in Brixton, which she loved. Soon after getting married she went with her husband to East Africa where he was working as Civil Engineer. As soon as people heard she was a teacher, she was asked to be Head of the local school, which she thoroughly enjoyed. Returning to the UK in 1979 she continued teaching, but later re-trained as a piano teacher, giving lessons to children and adults privately until she retired in 2009.
 
Definite in her views, she had a great sense of fun and good humour. Her focus was always to see the best in people and she had immense empathy for those in difficulty, disadvantaged or deprived in some way. This is the ethos behind Tom’s Trust, that everyone can be helped to find their right path and to achieve their potential.
Estella is greatly missed, but the work of the Trust and the principles that she embodied will continue.
 

Last year Tom’s Trust began supporting Camden Spear Trust, which works with vulnerable young people not in education, training or employment. Through a six week course and a further year’s support, young people become work-ready and many gain meaningful paid employment. 
 
Between November 2017 and June 2018 29 trainees were helped into work or training, such as Daniel who is working with Sainsbury’s, Dylan who has started at WHSmith, Yashir who has begun an apprenticeship in Mechanical Engineering, and Che is enjoying her job in childcare. Four of the trainees are studying for qualifications in college and one trainee has applied to study a Foundation Degree in Counselling, Coaching, and Mentoring at university.
 
They are still receiving excellent referrals from organisations across Camden, with 71% of the most recent cohort from referrers. They have had referrals from YOT, hostels and supported housing services such as Area Camden, Tavistock Centre, Brandon Centre, and Haverstock School. They hosted a Camden Referral Breakfast in March, where 17 people came from various organisations such as Camden YOT, Camden Children, School’s, and Families Services, and new JobCentre Plus advisers, to hear about the work Spear does and how they can refer young people to the programme. This enabled them to meet some of the new referrers in order to solidify and build on these relationships. They received three referrals for their current cohort as a result of this breakfast.
 

 
When Daniel (not his real name) was in school studying his AS levels, he suffered with anxiety and depression, to the point where he had to drop out of his studies. He planned to re-start the following year, but he wasn’t mentally well enough to continue.
Daniel felt that he had run out of options; all his friends were moving on with their lives and he was getting left behind. He was referred to Spear by a family friend, and when he first spoke to a Spear coach he felt he could not attend a group session as this would be too much for him to cope with.
The Spear coaches kept calling Daniel to make him feel at ease before attending the first session, and he built up enough courage to come to Spear. Daniel said that on the first day he couldn’t believe that a six-week programme could change his life in the way the coaches said it could. Over the following weeks, Daniel increased massively in confidence, and his anxiety affected him less than before. At the end of the programme, Daniel spoke at our Spear Celebration evening and told his story in front of fifty people. He said, “I didn’t believe Spear could change my life, but they did”.
Now Daniel is working in HMV and is enjoying his first ever job!