From finding families for those children in greatest need, to helping young people leaving care to cope with life, the Review demonstrates how the Coram charity helped more than a million children, young people and families over the past year.
It features updates about the impact of our wide-ranging work, including why 93 per cent of Key Stage 1 pupils said Coram Life Education helped them to think about drug and alcohol risks, and why 94 per cent of parents said their child’s well-being improved after attending Coram Creative Therapy.
The Review also brings Coram’s work to life through first-hand accounts from the children and families we help. They include adopters Kate and Rob, who bore the risk of uncertainty to give baby Thomas a loving home while the courts decided on his long-term care plan. The experience of teenager Joy is also featured, who endured beatings as a family’s unpaid domestic servant until she escaped, and, with the help of Coram Children’s Legal Centre, was finally given the support to which she was entitled so she could find housing and education.
The poignant words said by Martha aged seven, to her mother Angela, who adopted her through Coram, takes pride of place on the front page of the Review: “Mummy I think there’s an invisible thread between us, because you always know what I’m feeling, even when we don’t say anything. I think it’s magic.”
The Review also looks at plans for the future, with the celebration of the charity’s 275th anniversary in 2014 and the creation of a National Centre of Excellence for Children on Coram’s historic campus, which will increase Coram’s sustainability and efficiency in the long term and also help thousands more children today.
Dr Carol Homden CBE, Coram’s Chief Executive, said: “Together we must challenge daily neglect, refuse to allow young lives to be blighted by homelessness, school exclusion, drug and alcohol misuse and violence, and support children to overcome personal trauma, separation or abuse.
“Coram does this in a variety of ways by giving children better chances and making a change in their lives that will last a lifetime. In the past year, the Coram group of charities helped more than a million children, young people and their families.
“None of this would be possible without the help of so many supporters, volunteers, partner agencies, trustees, governors and our dedicated staff, and we thank them all.”