Virtual College supports Childrens Mental Health Awareness Week with daily charity donations

Virtual College is supporting Children’s Mental Health Awareness Week (6th- 12th February 2017) with a donation each working day of this week to related charities.

Through its long association with safeguarding children organisations, Virtual College has a close affinity with issues related to this sector. Over the last decade, Virtual College has donated over a quarter of a million pounds to support children’s charities.

This week, each of the 5 selected charities will receive a £2000 donation from Virtual College:

• Young Minds – a leading UK charity committed to improving the emotional wellbeing and mental health of children and young people
• Place2Be - a national charity providing emotional support to children in schools
• SelfharmUK - a project dedicated to supporting young people impacted by self-harm
• 42nd Street - a Greater Manchester young people’s mental health charity
• Hull and East Yorkshire Mind – founded in 1976 and has 40 years’ experience in providing mental health services to people in Hull and East Yorkshire

Diane Gault, Director of Fundraising at Young Minds, said: “We’re thrilled that Virtual College has decided to support YoungMinds.

“Over 850,000 children – an average of three in every classroom – are suffering from a serious mental illness in the UK today.

“With Virtual College’s generous donation, we will make a real difference to these children and young people who are facing hardship and distress due to mental illness, and to their parents and carers.”

Because Virtual College believes children’s mental health and self-harm are such important issues, it is currently donating its time to creating a free online course for parents in partnership with Self Harm UK.

Available soon, the free online course ‘Understanding Young Minds – talking about mental resilience and self-harm’ aims to help raise awareness and understanding amongst parents around this topic.

Ruth Ayres, Project Manager from Self Harm UK commented: “Self-harm is on the rise and the latest figures of young people attending A&E due to harming is hugely concerning.

“The Virtual College donation will help us to continue to support young people, parents and professionals, as well as campaign to end stigma around self-harm and mental illness.”

NOTES TO THE EDITOR:

Virtual College won the prestigious ‘learning technologies supplier of the year’ 2016/17 in the independently-judged global awards. Virtual College has also been identified as one of www.virtual-college.co.uk