Hope Support Services is the leading UK charity supporting children and young people age 5 to 25 when a loved one, such as a parent or sibling, is diagnosed with, or dies from, a serious illness. We currently support 400 to 500 children every year, across the entire UK. This is a ‘significant and unmet need’, according to the National Lottery Community Foundation, affecting around a million children a year nationally!. Many of these young people become young carers overnight, caring for younger siblings or older relatives. Those who struggle with their loved one’s diagnosis may experience a range of mental health issues including grief, anxiety, stress, loneliness and isolation, self-harm, substance abuse and school avoidance. They may struggle with day-to-day logistics such as cooking and budgeting. Hope’s Wellbeing Advisers provide one-to-one support and group support as well as activity days, away-days, residential trips and opportunities for youth social action. Support is in-person in Herefordshire and online elsewhere in the UK.
The grant will help us to fund a Local Liaison Officer in Wales, expanding our in-person support footprint to Wales, the first outside of our homebase in Herefordshire. It will pave the way for more children and young people to be referred for online support in Wales, and eventually to participate in in-person youth and family activities in Wales.
Research shows that for this age group, peer-to-peer group support is the most effective support and we see this for ourselves all the time. Whether learning to make pizza at a youth session, or rock climbing on an adventure activity trip, we see young people begin to share their experiences of loss and challenge with new friends with similar experiences, to put their feelings into words and into perspective, with hugely beneficial results. We have also seen benefits from family days, where the families of our supported young people get together for mutual support.
Our new LLO for Wales will reach out to our primary referring organisations in Wales such as schools and colleges, CAMHS schools in-reach teams, hospices, 3rd sector organisations like Macmillan, and local authority young carer teams.
The Pixel Fund grant supplements our first National Lottery Community Fund Awards for All grant in Wales and will fund additional communications materials in English and Welsh, additional support hours for young people from Wales and activities for youth groups and families.
In conjunction with our Lottery funding, the project will, we believe, enable us to increase referrals from Wales, resulting in a 150% uplift in the number of children and young people supported. From the data in our annual measured impact evaluations, these young people will report improved mental health and wellbeing, resilience and coping skills, strengthened support networks and improved school attendance.
1. The Open University Children’s Research Centre, 2018
