Much needed counselling and wellbeing sessions tailored to the needs of the young people living at our Young People’s Services projects, are set to continue thanks to the generosity of the East of England Charity, Hopestead.
Hopestead, Flagship Group’s own charity, have been supporting Empanda since June 2021, when they awarded a Wellbeing and Counselling Grant of £5,000 enabling us to restart our exhausted Wellbeing and Counselling Fund (previously supported by Norfolk Community Foundation Trust). This latest award of £3,500 comes in the form of top-up funding to the initial grant received last summer.
At our three young people’s projects in North Norfolk, we provide a home to 26 homeless young people aged between 16-25 at any one time. Whilst they are with us, we support them to gain the skills needed to live independently and then support them to move on to live in more independent accommodation. To help the smooth transition into independent living, good mental health is vitally important as it helps give the stability they need to enable them to maintain their tenancy into the future.
Access to counselling and mental health services is at crisis point, with waiting lists through the local NHS Foundation Trust (NSFT) being months or longer and GPs are only able to offer a telephone wellbeing service, also with a long waiting list. Many of the young people using our services have experienced some type of trauma in the past, often family related which has had a lasting impact on their mental health, wellbeing and sense of worth.
This funding will allow more of our young people the opportunity to get the support they need through specialist privately funded 1:1 counselling and in-house therapy sessions which, thanks to the original grant, many are already benefiting from.
Julia Everson, Head of Operations at Hopestead said, “We know that it is only through working together that we can make homelessness a rare, brief, and non-reoccurring event in people’s lives. Through our Hope Funds grant scheme, we are proud to support the great initiatives provided by our partners, like Empanda’s Counselling & Wellbeing Grant that makes such a vital difference to young people in our community and alleviates homelessness in our region.”
Fiona Raison, Manager of Empanda’s Young People’s Services said, “Hopestead’s grants for our Counselling and Wellbeing Fund is invaluable to our Empanda YPS residents. Many of our young people suffer from poor mental wellbeing as well as PTSD and other issues. We are so grateful to be able to offer them this essential help that would otherwise be unavailable.”
click here to find out more about the invaluable projects Hopestead is supporting.
oday marks Empanda’s sixth Anniversary. We can’t believe how the time has flown – it seems like only yesterday we were a fledgling organisation embarking on our new venture.
We would like to say a huge thank you to the Empanda staff team who voted to support Big C Cancer Charity with money saved by sending an e-Christmas card instead of buying and posting traditional paper cards. Staff were again given the opportunity to nominate a charity/charities close to their own hearts, and the Big C received the most votes making it the outright winner, which is fitting as we recently lost a friend and colleague from our Learning Disabilities service to cancer and we have another in our day care team going through treatment at the moment.
At the end of what has been another difficult and challenging year for everyone, we would like to wish our Empanda customers, website visitors, our partners, supporters, suppliers, colleagues, family and friends good health and much joy at Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year.
Volunteer Lorraine, who runs the Meet up Monday’s group at Brandon Day Centre, has herself been shielding but has been keeping in regular contact by telephone with some of her group members to check on their wellbeing and to provide a friendly voice. She told us that since starting the Meet up Monday’s group, she had become good friends with those who attend and wanted to ensure they weren’t feeling too isolated and that it was really nice to have a regular chat and general catch up.
As well as volunteering at Brandon Day Centre a couple of days a week, Alice is usually very active in her local community, helping out with different groups and clubs. Unfortunately, with most activities on hold at the moment, Alice hasn’t been able to do as much as she’d like to but has kept herself busy by contributing a Brandon & District Garden Club article each month within the local magazine, Brandon Life.
Whilst we are celebrating the excellent contribution our volunteers make, special recognition goes to Janet who sadly passed away recently. Janet had been volunteering at Brandon Day Centre for over 20 years, giving her time so generously twice a week to support our day care team and to spend time with our day care service users. Janet particularly enjoyed taking part in quizzes and listening to people. She was always aware that whilst some people make new friends easily, there was always someone with whom she could build a rapport and spend quality time with to build their confidence. Janet was much loved and will be remembered fondly for her service and dedication.
At a time when so many businesses face an uncertain future we are delighted to be celebrating our fifth Anniversary.
