OHC&AT awarded COVID-19 funding from Youth Endowment Fund  

OHC&AT in partnership with Innovating Minds has been awarded a grant from the Youth Endowment Fund to support young people who are vulnerable as a result the COVID-19 pandemic.  

Through ongoing monitoring and assessment of our safeguarding and wellbeing offer, it became clear that students face multiple challenges in relation to COVID-19 and lockdown restrictions. Their anxieties have increased regarding; attending school, the future, and the health and wellbeing of family and friends.  

We will use the funding to upskill identified staff members to deliver an evidence-based therapeutic programme within the school setting, and thus increase the access and attendance of therapeutic interventions for vulnerable young people. 

Staff will learn how to work with young people that have experienced trauma and how to deliver the programme. 

The project outputs are to reach 180 young people over the course of the year, with a minimum of 70% being aged 10-14. However, the project will benefit all pupils and students within our schools and the College as strong partnership working with Innovating Minds will support our facilitators to continue delivery of the programme beyond 2020-21. 

The Youth Endowment Fund is an independent charitable trust set up by the Home Office. It funds, supports and evaluates projects in England and Wales which work to prevent children and young people from being drawn into violent crime.   

OHC&AT is one of 130 organisations to share part of a £6.5m grant pot from the Youth Endowment Fund to help at-risk young people impacted by COVID-19.  

Jon Yates, Executive Director at Youth Endowment Fund, said: “It has been too easy to forget vulnerable young people during this crisis. The pandemic has removed much of the critical support that many of them rely upon – from teachers to youth workers. This funding will help us find the best way to reach and support these young people when they most need it.”