Charity Spotlight: Embrace At Social Work News, we love being able to profile some fantastic charities who are working alongside social services teams. This issue, we are shining a spotlight on Embrace – a children’s charity which provides support services for child victims of crime. We speak to Chief Executive, Anne Campbell to find out more about the work they are doing, and how social work professionals can benefit from their services.
Embrace provides support for children and families who have been victims of serious crime. Can you give us a breakdown of the types of support you offer? Our young victim care officers provide a personalised and dedicated service and will work with the child, their parents/guardians and relevant frontline professionals, following a referral, to identify the best support package for them. Our ‘high volume’ support tends to be provision of uplifting experiences – Christmas gifts or funded theme park days or similar – or practical support, for example funded uniform/sports kit or hobbies for those from low income households. For the most serious cases, or for those areas where we are commissioned and funded, we can provide access to counselling or another specialist therapy.
You were originally set up as a police response to raise funds for child victims of crime, but
"It’s our ambition to co-ordinate child victim care services in all parts of the UK." over the last 20 years you’ve evolved into a fully functioning children’s charity. How are you funded and is your work specific to locations in the UK? Embrace is a relatively small national charity, so it’s important that we can prioritise our funds and ensure that they are being used for children who otherwise cannot access that support locally. We are primarily funded through small grant funds, corporate, group and individual fundraising. It’s our ambition to co-ordinate child victim care services in all parts of the UK. This requires our services to be commissioned and funded, for example via Police and Crime Commissioners. Where this is happening – currently in some London boroughs, in Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire – we can deliver
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our fullest range of support packages, tailored to the individual child and family. As an example, in Cambridgeshire, we provide nowait access to CBT counselling and other specialist therapies (play, art, equine). We are always looking for new fundraising opportunities!
You work with child victims of a wide range of crimes, but you’ve recently reported an acute rise in referrals specifically for those affected by sexual abuse. Why do you think there’s been such a sharp increase in need for support for this specific crime over the past 12 months?
