Funding given to Tendring organisations to support young people

GRANTS to support and empower children and their families have been awarded to 10 organisations in Tendring.

Community Voluntary Services Tendring (CVST), through the Tendring Together partnership, awarded Start Well funding totalling £349,999.

Organisations working to improve emotional wellbeing and mental health were initially invited to an event in Clacton in November to launch the fund.

In May, successful projects were part of a marketplace event in Colchester for the Start Well domain.

They joined other organisations working with young people to promote their services.

Participants included Extra Support for Families, who received £45,000.

Erin Goddard, manager at Extra, said: “We applied for funding in partnership with Youth Enquiry Service – a portion of the funding is to offer counselling through YES to the young people coming through our service.

“We really wanted to support the parents and children together and Let’s Talk is a rolling programme where we talk with parents about connecting with their young people.

“We talk about what counselling is and the types of therapies, it’s support for them as parents and what is their young people having counselling is bringing up for them as a parent.

“They can stay for as long as they like and they can meet other parents too.”

HomeStart Colchester in partnership with Homestart Harwich received £50,000 to use in the Tendring district.

Wendy Taylor, manager at Homestart Harwich, said: “We wanted to set up pop-up groups to address the needs of different areas.

“We cover the Manningtree and Mistley area and villages, so there is a lot of social isolation.

“We visit people there but there aren’t groups for them to visit and socialise.

“And in Harwich there is a gap for parents with young babies, so we have started a group at our base in St Nicholas Church Hall.

“There is also nothing for ages five to 11-year-olds after school in Harwich, so we want to do some workshops for them aswell.”

The Start Well funding was delivered by Tendring Together on behalf of the NHS North East Essex Alliance.

Yvette Wetton, Head of Infrastructure at CVST, said: “The Start Well domain funding is an incredibly important way of supporting children and young people with their wellbeing and mental health.

“One of the key priorities was to support and reduce the number of children and young people reaching mental health crisis, including self-harm and substance misuse.

“The successful bids have amazing projects to help young people and their families through some particularly difficult times and we are pleased to be able to support them.”

Lee Bailey, Children and Young People’s Transformation Lead for the SNEE ICB, said: “Through the North east Essex Health and Wellbeing Alliance (Start Well) we were pleased to commit this funding to projects in the community that deliver early support.

“The breadth and variety of support that is now available to our children, young people and families will enable them to access the appropriate help, support, and mental health advice at the earliest possible opportunity.

“Our young people are our future, yet for many the pressures of growing up can prove a challenge, the investment in early support is vital to achieving better outcomes and improving emotional wellbeing for children and young people across North east Essex.”

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