Beyond Autism
Beyond Autism has been providing invaluable support and enriching experiences to autistic children, young people and their families since 2000. The charity is expert in working with children and young people with autism and makes breakthroughs in communication that dramatically improve a child’s ability to make sense of a confusing world. Its soft playroom and sensory rooms are at the heart of the school and provide a truly fundamental contribution to children’s learning and development. These rooms are designed to help an individual, with sensory issues, learn to regulate their brains’ negative reactions to external stimuli by developing coping skills for these experiences. However, since installation and being much loved by the learners and utilised frequently, the soft play and sensory rooms are now in need of a serious upgrade, which The Story of Christmas is funding.
Centrepoint
Centrepoint is the UK’s leading youth homelessness charity. Centrepoint’s vision is to end youth homelessness by 2037, so that no person born as from 2021 will experience the downward spiral of homelessness when they turn 16. Centrepoint believes that every young person should be supported to have a home and a job, regardless of their background or start in life. Sadly homeless young people face huge obstacles to moving forward. The current housing situation, made even worse by the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis, is trapping young people and preventing them from moving on to the future they deserve. Working together with The Story of Christmas, Centrepoint wishes to change this. Together, they will transform accommodation for young people in London, providing safe, warm and well-equipped homes. These homes will enable young people who have experienced homelessness to take their first steps towards living independently, and empower them to look forward towards a safe, happy and successful future.
City Harvest
City Harvest is an emergency food charity. Every week it rescues over 100 tonnes of surplus food from the food industry and delivers it, free of charge, to 375+ London charities feeding people facing food poverty. City Harvest’s partner charities include: after school clubs and breakfast clubs supporting children who would otherwise go hungry during the school day; homeless shelters supporting rough sleepers; food banks; and, domestic abuse refuges. The Story of Christmas is funding a crucial expansion of City Harvest’s Acton warehouse, implementing a new racking space and mezzanine floor. This project will enable the charity to store enough food to make an additional 50,000 meals in its depot, allowing City Harvest to deliver over two million meals a month to some of London’s most vulnerable people
Firebird for Schools
Firebird for Schools is a tailor-made concert for children at schools where provision for education in music is limited, which introduces them to the magical world of live orchestral music. The concert takes place at St George’s Hanover Square and features the London Firebird Orchestra – an orchestra of prize-winning young musicians from the major London conservatoires – with a celebrity narrator. Some of the schools attending are associated with The Story of Christmas’s nominated charity, Restore the Music.
Kids Network
The Kids Network is an award-winning mental health charity that provides tailored early-intervention for 8-11 year olds who face the most pervasive barriers to accessing the support they need. Through partnering with primary schools in nine underserved London boroughs, it reaches out to children in need through a programme of 1-2-1 mentoring. Its volunteer mentors, young professionals from the local community, work with children over the course of a year to help them build confidence and resilience and realise their potential. Mentors receive extensive safeguarding and mentoring training. The training is embedded in a trauma-informed and child-led approach to ensure the wellbeing of the child and the greatest impact. Since 2016, the charity has matched over 1,000 little Londoners with mentors, providing them with enriching and life changing experiences. With the help of The Story of Christmas, Kids Network looks forward to reaching 1,000 more children over the next three years.
The Passage
The Passage’s vision is that of a society where street homelessness no longer exists, and everyone has a place to call home. Based in the heart of Westminster, it provides practical support and a wide range of services to help transform the lives of people who are experiencing, or at risk of, street homelessness. Passage House Assessment Centre, one of its residential and resettlement projects, provides accommodation, assessment and resettlement services for up to 37 people at any one time. Residents have half board meal service which includes breakfast and a hot meal in the evening prepared by the Centre’s in-house chef. The menu is healthy, hearty, and nutritious and caters for all dietary requirements or food allergies. The Story of Christmas is funding the much needed renovation of the kitchen at Passage House. The provision of healthy nutritious meals offers physical and mental health benefits, and encourages residents to remain at Passage House for the duration of the assessment process, engage with their case workers and other services. Residents will ultimately find their own route off the street and into their own accommodation.
Place2Be
Not every childhood brings happy memories. Place2Be provides mental health support in schools, enabling children and young people to cope when facing adversity. Place2Be’s counsellors based within schools reach children experiencing problems such as bullying, bereavement and anxiety, and clinically improving their mental health. The Story of Christmas is funding the refurbishment of 10 Place2Be therapy rooms in London, upgrading the rooms with a focus on representing the wonderfully diverse school communities Place2Be serves. This means children will access therapeutic toys, books, art materials and posters which reflect their lives and support their wellbeing.
Restore the Music (RTM)
Restore the Music UK is a low overhead/high impact charity addressing the systemic inequality in the level of music provision in state schools, specifically those in areas of high socio-economic deprivation. Founded in 2017, Restore the Music UK is a vital resource in the fight to address the lack of social cohesion and mobility nationwide by opening up transformative opportunities and multiple pathways to all young people through music education. With the increasing struggle to stretch school budgets to accommodate rising poverty levels, RTM funding is in high demand. To date, grants totalling £1.8 million have been awarded nationwide with a total reach of 80,000+ young people. With the help of The Story of Christmas, RTM looks forward to extending funding to reach 1000s more young people and helping them to overcome the barriers which hinder their future journey.
Single Homeless Project (SHP)
Single Homeless Project has 47 years’ experience in helping Londoners in crisis and supporting those who have experienced homelessness to find a place they can call home and to live a fulfilling life.
With funding from The Story of Christmas, SHP will create eight medical rooms and install 15 defibrillators within their hostels specialising in supporting people directly off the streets and who suffer from complex needs. Medical rooms will offer a clinical, safe and confidential environment to deliver a breadth of health services including nursing, GPs, podiatry, HEP C, sexual health, substance misuse and mental health services. These in-house medical rooms will remove multiple barriers, including stigma, fear and judgement, enabling clients to access health services they have not accessed for years, allowing SHP to diagnose and provide lifesaving medical treatment for serious health concerns. The defibrillators will further reduce medical emergencies and loss of life, with clients much more susceptible to cardiac arrest than the general public.
St Christopher’s Fellowship
St Christopher’s Fellowship provides fostering, residential and support services for children and young people to ensure they can be safe, loved, happy, achieve, succeed and realise their dreams. The two homes, The Story of Christmas will be supporting, provide a nurturing environment for young people, who will usually have come through the care system and may have experienced adversity as a result of sexual abuse, neglect, family dysfunction, loss or other trauma. At the homes, they find a safe space to develop their independence. They stay for two–six months (up to a year if needed) while it helps find them a permanent home and helps them prepare for the future. The homes are split into individual and shared flats and face a fair amount of wear and tear. The Story of Christmas’s support will help refurbish the flats and kitchens and buy some new furniture to make their accommodation more homely.
St Martin-in-the-Fields: 18 Keys Project
Many hostels and refuges for people who have been living on the street lack the facilities where their specific needs can be met. The shortage of specialist provision for women is particularly acute. Women in this group are unlikely to reach their 43rd birthday. The 18 Keys Project, lead by St Martin-in-the-Fields Trust, provides a great opportunity to transform an existing hostel in London into a model of its kind for women who have experienced the trauma of long term street homelessness. On the site of the hostel, there are 16 self-contained studio apartments where The Story of Christmas is helping the charity create a new communal kitchen and living space, a one-to-one therapy room, therapeutic garden and two additional studio apartments. This new facility will be able to provide safety for up to 750 women through the course of each year.
Starlight
Starlight uses the power of play to improve the physical, emotional and mental wellbeing of seriously ill children in NHS hospitals, hospices or receiving care at home. Treatment in hospital can have a devastating impact on children’s mental health if their needs are not met. Research – and children – tell us that everyday play opportunities reduce the fear, pain and trauma of treatment. With the support of The Story of Christmas, Starlight will be able to bring joy and fun to children’s wards across the UK by re-introducing a Pantomime tour and associated play activities. Following a three-year hiatus due to Covid, the programme uses the benefits of distraction therapy and art and entertainment in hospital. Starlight will also commission a Virtual Pantomime which can be streamed to thousands of children in healthcare settings or at home.
Transform Housing & Support
Transform Housing & Support is a specialist housing and support provider to people who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless. It supports vulnerable young people with complex needs, many of them care leavers. Transform works to provide a safe and secure home which is welcoming and a psychologically-informed environment that promotes wellness. The Story of Christmas support will benefit clients providing fresh, new, modern kitchen and bathrooms at a number of Transform’s shared properties. This will ensure that young people have a place where they feel safe, secure and welcomed where they can grow and develop skills to continue their journey towards independence.
West London Mission KPH
WLM KPH is an independently-approved home for young men leaving the criminal justice system. It aims to ensure that residents can begin to reintegrate safely and constructively into the community. The Story of Christmas’s help will create a space that demonstrates that residents at WLM KPH are valued and will play a significant role in enabling people to move forward positively with their lives, by refurbishing bedrooms and kitchenettes, bathrooms and communal living areas.
Supporting the Ukraine Crisis: Opora and Baby Basics
The Story of Christmas is mindful of the tragedy and loss caused by the Ukraine crisis. It is supporting two initiatives to help, both started in 2022. In collaboration with the UK charity Opora, it is funding the provision of warm clothes packs to Ukrainians fleeing the crisis and re-settling in this country. Working with another UK charity, Baby Basics, The Story of Christmas is supplying items of equipment to Ukrainian families re-settling with children – such as prams, cots, high chairs, push-chairs, etc.
