This year’s awards focused on inspirational charities across the UK who are supporting communities impacted by Covid-19. CCS won the award for the digital transformation of our early-intervention mental health services, which enabled us to deliver remote support to vulnerable children and young people throughout the pandemic.

The Award recognised CCS’s swift response to lockdowns and school closures. CCS implemented new VOIP phone systems across the organisation and launched a new cloud-based case management system. Alongside this, our employees undertook training with The Academy for Online Counselling and Psychotherapy to ensure best practice.  CCS is now one of the only charities in the country to have all counsellors and therapists qualified in this field.

These efforts enabled our counsellors and therapists to seamlessly adapt to working from home and provide weekly telephone and video sessions with pupils, allowing consistent and regular support to continue.  At a time of such heightened anxiety and uncertainty, this has proved a lifeline for children with complex mental difficulties who have been left even more fragile and isolated by this crisis.

The impact of this work can be summed up by one child who said:

“After mum died I was so sad and scared.  But I’ve been able to share thoughts and feelings that I thought I would never be able to. It helped me feel calmer and happier. Thank you for being there for me.”

Thank you to our supporters for making this work possible.