Children

SOME STATISTICS suggest that there's one children's charity for every 150 children – from the Polka Children’s Theatre to Whizz-Kidz. Donors are clearly spoilt for choice.

The following categories should help you choose.

> The big players
> Preventing cruelty and abuse
> Disadvantaged children
> Supporting families
> Poverty
> Refugees
> Disability
> Illness
> Fitness and obesity
> Education and culture

The big players
Big charities are the perfect choice if you don't have a specific issue to support. They also have the advantage of being big enough to carry political clout, and their campaigns usually attract plenty of attention.

NCH (see profile) and Barnardo’s (see profile) are two giants with similar aims. They receive most of their funding from the government and offer a large range of services to disadvantaged, vulnerable or excluded children and young people across the UK. Either is a pretty safe bet if you want to help in as many areas as possible.

The Children’s Society (see profile) is smaller but still a heavyweight. It focuses on specific groups, such as children at risk on the streets, disabled children and young refugees. Although it has links with the Church of England, it doesn’t preach and it helps people of all beliefs.

The YMCA (see profile) is another large Christian charity, sponsoring and undertaking an enormous range of work. It helps all sorts of people, not just young Christian men, and is one of the biggest providers of accommodation, sports facilities and even childcare.

BBC Children in Need (see profile) is a fundraiser which distributes your cash to over 1,500 (mainly small) charities which also help disadvantaged kids in the UK. Its high-profile campaign raises awareness and generates lots of cash, but the smarter donor will avoid paying two sets of admin costs by donating directly to front-line charities.

The NSPCC (see profile) is one of the UK’s best-known children charities, but in fact it has a relatively narrow focus, preventing cruelty and abuse (see below).

If you’d like to help children abroad as well as in the UK, Save the Children (see profile) is another giant which supports those suffering from poverty, disease, injustice and violence. It focuses on health, education, hunger and protection.

If you want more say on where your money goes, there are lots of charities which specialise in specific areas. Many of these are smaller than the usual household names, and as not everyone has heard of them, they often have more trouble attracting donations.

For more about the big players, see this short article.

Preventing cruelty and abuse
The NSPCC (see profile) is the big name in this area – the children’s colossus runs the telephone helpline ChildLine, as well as a line for concerned adults. It also works with and supports victims of abuse, and is a major player in raising awareness of children’s vulnerability.

There are also less conventional ways of dealing with this problem. For example, the Survivors’ Trust supports people who were abused as children and are now dealing with the impact on their adult lives. The Lucy Faithfull Foundation, more controversially, aims to tackle the root causes of abuse by working with potential and actual sex abusers, helping them to regulate their behaviour.

For a broader outlook from a relatively small specialist, the Children’s Rights Alliance for England monitors and lobbies government on children's rights.

Bullying
The Anti-Bullying Alliance (ABA) is an umbrella organisation, co-ordinating and providing a network for charities trying to reduce bullying. The site has a list of members with a summary of their work – a good place to start if bullying is a cause you’d like to help to tackle. Note that the popular bullying.co.uk website is not a member of the ABA.

For more information on charities helping with bullying, see this short article.

Disadvantaged and excluded children and young people
All the big names help in this area – for example, the YMCA (see profile) provides accommodation, works with children in custody and helps young people find jobs. The Children’s Society (see profile) also supports kids on the street, as does the homeless charity Shelter (see profile), whose remit extends to improving poor housing.

Prince Charles’s charity, the Prince's Trust (see profile), is a giant which gets disadvantaged 14-30 year-olds into employment, further education or entrepreneurship. Weston Spirit (see profile) is a much smaller organisation. It offers free voluntary courses to wayward 13-25 year-olds, helping to instil skills, self-esteem, sociability and employability.

Supporting families
Many experts think this is the best way to help vulnerable children, particularly to stop them being taken into care. The large Family Welfare Association (see profile) provides practical and therapeutic support for families, particularly where parents have mental-health problems. It even works within the family home, helping to maintain a normal routine for the children. The Daycare Trust (see profile), on the other hand, campaigns for good quality, affordable childcare, as well as providing practical help.

Kids Company (see profile) works with children whose parents are unable to care for them adequately, using a psychotherapeutic approach to give practical and emotional support.

Where children can no longer live with their families, it’s the turn of the British Association for Adopting and Fostering. This charity runs the Adoption Register for England and Wales on behalf of the government and helps to place and support adopted or fostered kids.

Poverty
A major issue. If you want to help out here, first decide which area of the world you would like to focus on, and also whether you prefer a charity which specialises in children, or one which tries to tackle poverty in general.

The Child Poverty Action Group (see profile) lobbies on behalf of poor children in the UK.

World Emergency Relief (see profile) is a non-denominational Christian charity trying to alleviate child poverty through distributing donated goods to development projects and local charities around the world.

Oxfam (see profile) aims to reduce both poverty and child poverty worldwide, and UNICEF works with children in a variety of projects in more than 150 developing countries. Contrary to popular belief, it receives no money from the UN.

Refugees
Refugee children need support both with the process of applying for asylum and with settling in once it has been granted. Children are often central to the integration of the whole family into society, while the 3,000 unaccompanied kids arriving yearly need particular help.

Refugee Action (see profile) helps refugees settle in Britain and campaigns for their rights. The charity points out that many of these young people have also suffered considerable trauma in their home countries. The Children’s Society (see profile) also works with young refugees. Student Action for Refugees, also known as STAR, encourages students to work with refugees and to campaign for their rights. It points out that students are a productive group to engage because they have time and enthusiasm.

Disability
Disabled children need expensive care and equipment to improve their quality of life, while their families in turn need practical and emotional support. Earlier this year, the government announced a £340m investment in services for disabled children, but apparently there is still a considerable funding gap.

The Council for Disabled Children brings together charities, parents and professionals to help them influence new government policies and to work together at a local level. It also works with disabled young people who are leaving education.

Whizz-Kidz (see profile) focuses on equipment, supplying wheelchairs and other mobility kit that the NHS can’t afford to disabled under-18s, and Get Kids Going encourages them to get involved in sport by providing special wheelchairs.

The National Blind Children's Society (see profile) helps under-25-year-olds to get a decent education, while Sense UK (see profile) works with deaf-blind adults and children. Cerebra – for Brain Injured Children and Young People (see profile) researches children’s brain injuries and provides support to families.

Action on Disability and Development (see profile) campaigns to bring disabled people (and children) in the developing world into mainstream society, mostly by helping local charities.

Illness
Finding a charity focussing on a particular illness is usually easy, particularly if it’s a well-known condition. Try searching our list of charities with the disease as the key word. Most deal with both care and research, but consider whether you would like to support one over the other.

CLIC Sargent (see profile) is the largest children’s cancer charity, supporting children and their families and funding research into the disease. Children with Leukaemia (see profile) is similar but, obviously, more specialist. The Teenage Cancer Trust (see profile) is a much smaller outfit which focuses on providing special teen units in hospitals. Children with AIDS is a very small charity, also dealing with care and support rather than research.

Specialising in unusual conditions, the Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity (see profile) plugs the financial gaps of the hospital and helps treat over 100,000 children per year.

Do also consider giving to hospices, which often struggle for funds – take a look at our listings for your nearest.

Fitness and obesity
Child obesity is fast becoming a major problem. The YMCA (see profile) is the largest voluntary sector provider of health and fitness services that promote physical activity and healthy living, and the Youth Sports Trust aims to encourage sport and good quality physical education lessons among under-18s in the UK.

Education and culture
Many organizations hope to influence the future of society by shaping how children see the world.

For example Springboard UK helps children with learning difficulties in inner-city primary schools, while the Polka Children’s Theatre introduces kids to the arts through theatre, singing and dance. On a much larger scale, the National Foundation for Youth Music (see profile) is the biggest provider of grants for encouraging children’s music-making.

Other organisations, particularly the UK Youth Parliament, encourage young people aged 11-18 to express their views on issues affecting them, and to make sure that these views are heard by those making policy decisions.

There is also plenty of choice if you want to help children abroad. As well as the big names like Oxfam (see profile) and Save the Children (see profile), there are smaller charities which focus on education. Link Community Development takes a long-term approach to improving schools in Africa, while Children in Crisis (see profile) helps educate children in difficult situations across the world, including those affected by drug abuse in the UK.

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