Organised by In Charley's MemoryAs we come up to the holiday season we would like to appeal to your sense of community spirit. We have been working diligently for nearly 10 years now, supporting your children and young people with their mental health, and we want to keep going!
In Charley's Memory (ICM) are an award winning, grassroots mental health charity providing 1:1 counselling support for anyone aged 11+. We are located in Highbridge, Somerset, but support people from all over the county. But we don't stop there, we also support anyone from outside the county who are happy to travel to our office.
ICM are considered one of the county's leading providers for mental health services and we are routinely supporting clients who are referred here by all of the local GP surgeries, NHS services, prison service, Social Services, and more!
However, we receive no funding from the government to continue to support the work of the NHS and other services. Last year we saved the NHS an estimated £737,000 by providing the 1:1 unlimited support that we supply. Our excellent reputation means we are facing increasing demand for our service and as a result our youngest clients are facing long waiting lists for support. These clients can only be seen by our most qualified staff due to their age and in many cases, the complexity and severity of their presenting concerns.
We provide several services to our local community to support their mental health including;
Providing 1:1 counselling to 240 people per week from our office.
A thriving youth club for ages 10-13, which regularly sees over 40 attendees per week.
A weekly school project in six secondary schools in the area.
Parent and community drop-in services.
Young people, parents, and other adults can self-refer into our services via our website, where they can also view information on many of the presenting issues we see often.
After an assessment they are matched with a counsellor from our diverse team, if they are under 16 they may be entered into our shorter term wellbeing course, or our uncapped counselling service, whichever is best suited to their needs.
Our in school project provides 1:1 solution-focused sessions, a student drop-in, assemblies, and parent/teacher online workshops. Our school counsellors are in school every week to provide consistent, accessible, timely support to students. For students who require additional support, we can refer them straight into our core service.
Our youth club supports children in school years 6-8 by providing a safe and fun environment to mix with peers and support the transition between primary and secondary schools.
We are so proud to have grown and run successfully for ten years, but now we need the support of our community to ensure our survival.
We can only ever be sure of the next three months at any one time, and that puts a huge amount of pressure on our leadership team. It's a pressure they are happy to take on, but we really need the support of our community to survive, just like we have helped members of the community to survive.
We have to raise £300,000 per year to keep going and we are facing significant challenges accessing funding. One of the reasons is that many grant providers feel a service like ours should be paid for by the government rather than them - the irony!
If you, or anyone you know, have benefitted from our service, maybe your child going to one of the schools we support, or you just feel passionately that our service must survive, then please help us.
Charities pay a small fee for our service. Learn more about fees
