Many children across the country affected by crime now find themselves doubly disadvantaged as a result of coronavirus – many parents having lost family income as a result of Covid-19.
Embrace Child Victims of Crime (CVoC) set up Alfie’s Fund to provide support for these children and their families and are now announcing further details of how this help can be accessed.
The charity, set up originally by police officers, established Alfie’s Fund – named after their mascot teddy bear – at the beginning of lockdown to buy children the essentials they needed, particularly food, clothing and items to help home schooling or access our telephone/online support services.
This has been a great success and, as a result of successful funding bids to community foundations in specific areas, together with voluntary fundraising, we now have funding in the following areas:
BEDFORDSHIRE
CAMBRIDGESHIRE
CHESHIRE
GREATER LONDON
GREATER MANCHESTER
YORKSHIRE
WALES (Dyfed-Powys)
Referrals are invited from serving police officers (including specialist child protection, family liaison officers and those working in multi-agency sexual abuse and domestic violence teams), victims’ hubs and Sexual Abuse Referral Centres.
The referral process is secure, straightforward and simple – just fill in the referral form on our website, www.embracecvoc.org.uk/refer-a-child/ , and our team will be in touch.
If you want to make a referral for a child or children in other parts of England & Wales, please first phone our national contact centre, 0345 60 999 60. We are constantly fundraising and ring-fence funds raised in areas to be spent only in those areas –we may have funds waiting to be spent where you live.
Embrace is a national charity offering a range of support services that can be tailored to suit individuals – our fastest-growing services are our telephone emotional support and talking therapies.
Said CEO Anne Campbell: “We recognised that the virus was going to have far-reaching consequences for families who were already struggling to make ends meet. The loss of jobs and income despite furlough and other schemes has been catastrophic for some families – just imagine that on top of crime-related trauma. Horrendous.
“We’ve been fundraising to help these families through a cash crisis and to provide some of the everyday items that they now cannot afford. This may be food but it is also likely to be clothing – children grow fast – along with educational items that help them to productively spend their leisure time.
“We’ve also been providing the means to access our emotional support services for those young people who desperately need to talk to someone who will understand what they have been through and help them develop coping strategies. A mobile phone isn’t just a luxury item today, it is a vital tool to help a disadvantaged young person keep connected and access help.”
Alfie’s Fund is named after our mascot which, in turn, was named after a serving Chief Constable, Alf Hitchcock, who was a long-serving trustee of the Embrace Board. Alf, who was in charge of the Bedfordshire force for a number of years, was leading the Ministry of Defence Police when he died.
