In line with the Sidney & Phyllis Krystal Foundation’s values, SPK UK will look for small charities focused on the education and general wellbeing of young people in UK communities.
We will work together to establish the right projects for the foundation to engage in supporting, and follow the progress of work as it moves forward.
We’ll announce the projects here and you can catch up on their development over on our Community Hub.
Booney Smith
With over 30 years’ experience in the fashion industry, Booney has worked for influential designers including Jasper Conran and Bruce Oldfield. In 2004 she undertook Doula training to specialise in helping new mothers and their babies. Friends for more than four decades, Booney played a significant role during the last two years of Phyllis’ life, overseeing the publication of her new books and the launch of the SPK Foundation’s website.
Christine Dandridge
Christine has worked in the international insurance world for over 35 years, mainly as a founder of Atrium Underwriting. In the last decade she has held several non-executive directorships. These included Lloyd’s Register and the board of the charitable trust of Lloyd’s of London.
Brigid Medlam
MSc BA Dip Counselling Psychologist, Accredited Restorative Approaches Facilitator
Now retired, Brigid worked and trained in the NHS as a Counselling Psychologist in mental health, Primary Care and Neuro rehabilitation. She then moved to Social Services working in the Youth Offending Team and as an accredited Restorative Approaches Facilitator focusing on family group conference’s and victim offender meetings. Latterly Brigid worked in schools with students, families and staff on a variety of different presenting issues.
Community Hub pageNorthleigh House School in Warwick was founded by Viv and Fred Morgan in 2012. The couple were moved to take action by media coverage about the issue of bullying in secondary schools and the tragic suicide of a young local girl.
They opened the school in their own home creating a truly personalised student led curriculum that encompasses both academic and therapeutic support. It focuses on the school’s core values of positive self esteem, confidence in one’s own judgement, self-reliance, ambition, compassion and independence.
Northleigh House strives to provide a happy, safe and nurturing environment where children can grow and develop to their full potential. Many of the students at Northleigh have been excluded from mainstream education and having attended Northleigh have gone on to exceed the expectations they have been given, with some achieving a place at University.
In further testament to the success of the school, the Morgans were awarded the Pride of Britain Special Recognition Award in 2015 for their extraordinary education. Following Fred’s death Viv has continued to work tirelessly ad was herself awarded awarded an MBE in 2019.
Schools that provide this kind of essential support are seriously lacking in the UK. The Government and local Councils recognise the vital need for extraordinary schools such as Northleigh and offer support where possible.
The Foundation visited the school in early 2019 and we were blown away by Viv’s determination and passion to help the students in her care. She is an absolute inspiration.
Forever Angels is a UK based charity. The Baby Home provides interim care for orphaned and abandoned children in Tanzania. Amy Hathaway and her husband moved to Tanzania in 2002 to teach at an International School. Whilst there, they visited many orphanages where children were being very poorly cared for. After seeing a huge need for a home specifically for babies, Forever Angels was established and they took in their first child in 2006.
Since then the focus has been on reuniting orphaned and abandoned children with their relatives and setting them up to be able to provide life-long care. After years of working closely with these families, learning from them, Forever Angels found that child abandonment could be prevented by empowering a family. Maisha Matters was created as a way to work closely with at risk families and provide nutrition and education so families can live independently.
The emphasis is upon high quality interim care and our goal is for every child to be raised in a loving home. 80% of the children who enter their care have returned to live with their biological families or have been adopted into new families. This is highly indicative of the success of the Baby Home and the excellent relationships that have been established with the local community and services.
Maisha Matters is run by the Forever Angels Baby Home staff and aims to keep families together by empowering them to work their way out of abject poverty and care for their children at home. The goal is empowerment and sustainability.
The group take 50 families, each with an at-risk baby, through a yearlong project to encourage them to care for their own children and to live independently. They start with a malnourished infant who has no lactating mother and who is at risk of malnutrition and death – and finally achieve a confident and self-supporting family.
The Foundation has been aware of the work Forever Angels has accomplished for many years, and knew that our donation at the end of 2019 would be put to good use. We took great joy in supporting the Christmas festivities and providing the babies with much needed milk.
Small, well-run charities transform lives every day. Their work has measurable impact, yet they struggle to compete for the funding they deserve. Raise Your Hands exists to increase the impact of exceptional small charities.
The largest 5% of charities in the UK receive 87% of the income. This isn’t just about redressing that imbalance. Raise Your Hands believe that small charities, at their best, outperform their bigger rivals.
Small charities are specialists, working in a particular field like HIV or suicide prevention. Specialism means expertise. And because they’re small they can be agile, innovative and responsive to needs, without the bureaucracy and politics of larger organisations.
Small charities often work locally, so they understand the specific challenges faced. They’re better positioned to build relationships in the community, and help those hardest to reach.
Just because they’re small doesn’t mean they don’t do work with real impact.
For small charities who have proven impact and robust leadership Raise Your Hands unlocks income that would normally be out of reach providing them with unrestricted funding so they can build capacity and focus on what they do best – improving the lives of disadvantaged children.
Over the past eight years Raise Your Hands have raised over £1,600,000 for our supported charities.
42nd Street is an innovative Greater Manchester young people’s mental health charity with 40 years’ experience of providing free and confidential services to young people who are experiencing difficulties with their mental health and emotional wellbeing.
- Their objectives are to:
- Improve well-being and recovery
- Increase opportunities for young people to shape their own care and influence change
- Improve and increase inclusion and accessibility to appropriate services and support
-Increase awareness and reduce stigma
The 42nd Street team recognises that many young people can feel disempowered, that some services are difficult for them to identify with and access and that their mental health and personal difficulties can be made worse by the health, social, cultural and economic inequalities that they might experience.
They understand how difficult it can be to take that first step and tell someone how you’re really feeling. Their workers, counsellors and therapists are on hand to help young people understand the things that are affecting them and develop positive coping strategies along the way.
They offer a choice of effective, creative, young person-centred and rights-based approaches. All of the services are free, confidential and give people the opportunity to open up in a safe and understanding environment.
The SPK Foundation began supporting 42nd Street in August 2021 and we have so enjoyed following the incredibly creative and inspiring projects they run throughout the year.
L’Arche believes that people with learning disabilities have much to teach us and contribute to the world. They have learnt that one of the best ways to enable this is by creating communities with a culture of shared lives between people with and without learning disabilities.
L’Arche Communities hold in balance four elements: service, community, spirituality & outreach. Reflecting and celebrating the ethnic, cultural and religious composition of the areas in which they exist. They seek to go beyond supporting people's basic needs disabilities, building circles of support around them. It is this focus on building relationships and cultivating a sense of belonging that makes them different from other service providers.
At the heart of L’Arche is the support they provide to people with learning disabilities. As well as providing high quality housing and supported living, they also work with individuals to access employment and voluntary opportunities.
Many of their Communities provide day support services, as well assisting people to access relevant healthcare and, where appropriate, receive therapeutic services.
They work hard to ensure that the needs of individuals with learning disabilities are met holistically, and that people are supported to live fully integrated and empowered lives within their wider communities.
They have a long history of working with social services and social work departments, health authorities, primary care trusts, registration and regulatory authorities, housing associations and others, to provide high quality support that is recognised as being truly responsive to people with learning disabilities
Having opened its doors in 2013 L’Arche Manchester now have a total of 4 houses where 3 to 4 young adults with learning disabilities live alongside several live-in assistants who share life together. L’Arche Manchester also offers day activities for its members and for people with learning disabilities in the wider Manchester community. They provide activities including a gardening and allotment group, inclusive yoga, music, card making, bread-making and more. In partnership with the Withington and Fallowfield Foodbank, and St Paul’s Church in Withington, they also run a community cafe – The Hive. It is run by people with and without learning disabilities who serve delicious, home-cooked meals at affordable prices.
We announced our support of L’Arche in Manchester in 2021 when they were in the process of fundraising for a new building project. Rose House had been donated to them by a member of the community and the team at L’Arche were seeking support to cover the costs of refurbishment and adaptations required for the needs of future residents.
The work that L’Arche do to support their residents in their day to day lives within their communities is inspiring. As is the assistance they offer in dealing with the many agencies involved with their residents everyday needs.
The SPK UK is proud to support The Kids Network in 2024. The Kids Network is a London based community of children and volunteer mentors connecting through fun, curiosity and friendship for positive social change.
The Kids Network supports children at a crucial time in their lives, in the lead up to and often during the transition from primary into secondary school. They do this by providing them with a volunteer mentor, a local hero from their London community.
50% of mental health issues can be diagnosed before the age of 14. At this young age young people experience exam pressure, social media addiction, bullying, and gang grooming. Children are stressed, depressed, anxious and angry and it affects the disadvantaged disproportionally.
The Kids Network focuses on the individual needs of the child, building confidence and resilience and developing the tools for a positive future. Mentors are trained to deliver child-led sessions, which help them overcome the challenges and complexities of their young lives.
Find our more about our work with the Kids Network here