Making a difference across the region – the findings of our Impact Report.
Since 1891, Children North East has been determined to make a difference to the lives of babies, children, and young people throughout the North East of England. We’ve developed this work to the point that it now even extends across other parts of the UK.
Each year that comes brings new changes and challenges, and each year we reflect on how we’ve addressed them in order to make a difference to young people. So, we’re very pleased to publish our 2022/2023 Impact Report, providing a detailed look at our achievements and the effect they’ve had.
The current climate: our actions in the face of adversity
In the North East and across the UK, we’ve seen policies fail to meet the basic needs of babies, children, young people and their families. The increased demand for our services has been stark, driven by the pressures of the cost-of-living crisis on families, continued cuts to funding for youth work, and the profound impact of COVID-19 on children and young people.
In response, we’ve increased our policy work. One of the major focuses has been advocating for a basic standard of living for all, including calling on the Government to update benefits in line with inflation and scrap the two-child cap.
Now, we’re fervently campaigning for a national strategy that acknowledges and addresses child poverty (which affects a staggering 4.2 million children in the UK). Meeting the demand for our services and ensuring the stability of our core functions has been no small feat, but it’s one we’ve embraced with determination, creating spaces providing our local communities with the support they desperately need in the current economic climate.
Last March, our Cowgate space saw us open Cafe Hope: a hub for families from the local community to eat, stay warm, access services and build their support networks.
In Northumberland, where some towns have 65% of their households being identified as deprived, we’ve launched a new base to run services. Activities like these helped us grow the reach of our support by 10% this year, with 4,544 individuals accessing our services.
A few facts and figures
From 2022 to 23, we’ve supported 4,544 individuals (the number of babies, children, young people and parents/carers accessing our frontline services and support, such as counselling, youth groups or family support). This figure represents a 10% increase in relation to last year (2021/22).
We’ve delivered 69 unique services and programmes to support babies, children, young people and families, and we’ve 1,456 in our supporter community engaged with our requests for donations, fundraising, volunteering and other types of support. This figure includes 402 individual fundraisers and 52 organisations who have donated or raised funds on our behalf (not capturing the diverse and wonderful range of groups and individuals who lend a helping hand to our teams).
Our services and projects span every Local Authority area in the North East, and there are several areas across the UK where we’ve delivered Poverty Proofing© services to organisations.
One-off events – aside from regular services – supported families with respite and community. A much-needed day of fun taking over 70 children, teenagers, parents and carers on a trip to Cullercoats beach was a special highlight. Echoing the trip which started our charity 131 years ago, when founders John Lunn and John Watson took children from the city on a trip to Tynemouth beach to help their health, this was the first visit to the beach for some of the children. It’s an extremely powerful and important experience to provide.
You can read more about our work supporting families in the Impact Report itself, where you’ll find case studies of specific services.
Improving and empowering young minds
Declining mental health amongst young people in the North East continues to grow year on year. In turn, this creates longer waiting lists for young people to be seen by qualified mental health practitioners, including counsellors and therapists.
Our counselling team are adept at dealing with high referral rate, keeping waiting time to an absolute minimum (averaging six weeks). Counselling is adapted within different environments, delivering person-centred care. 100% of those accessing counselling stated their mental health has improved. 97% feel they have more strategies and feel more positive about their future.
One example of the impact of our work is our partnering with BU Wellbeing North Tyneside Learning Trust to offer 119 pupils the charity’s BU Wellbeing course: helping children and young people build resilience and develop positive techniques to manage their mental health.
Gary Munday, Pastoral Guidance Officer at Monkseaton Middle School noted, “The children responded well to sessions, and we saw them grow into it as the weeks built up. The sessions have given students the skills, confidence, and resilience to support them to achieve.” One thing shining through feedback was the positive reflections of the pupils, with one even calling it “absolutely magnificent.”