Derbion Cares 2023 Partner

We are proud to announce Children First Derby as our incredible new charity for 2023.

After receiving more than 40 applications from local charities for the scheme, which has returned for a second year, the Derbion Cares committee has selected Children First Derby as the centre’s charity partner for 2023.  

Launched in 1974, Children First Derby is an award-winning charity that aims to relieve the distress and suffering of children in the local area by providing life-changing support to vulnerable children, young people and families. Derbion will offer Children First Derby support throughout the year through fundraising, free in-centre activity space, staff volunteer time, centre resource  and much more.

Learn more about our 2023 Charity Partner with Children First Derby’s Fundraising Coordinator Louise Webb

What does Children First Derby do and how does it help children and families in the local community? 

Children First Derby is a Derbyshire-based charity that works with vulnerable children, young people, and their families, to make a positive impact in their lives and the local community. 

Originally established in 1974 by Milly Wigley, a local Derby resident, after reading about the death of a neglected child, the charity’s founding aim is to help relieve the distress and suffering experienced by children, young people, and their families in the local area, with Milly continuing to play an integral role in fundraising and raising awareness.

Children First Derby offers support through three bespoke services: Family
Support Service; Mentoring Service and Supervised Contact Service for looked after children, supporting 444 children and 140 adults in the Derby area throughout 2022.

We have seen some incredibly positive changes in the lives of the children,  young people and families we support through our services, from improved school attendance and attainment, to reduced levels of anti-social behaviour, better relationships within the family to increased confidence and reduced social isolation. 

In addition to providing one-to-one support, we also deliver weekly diversionary activities within our mentoring service including football club, drama and climbing, helping the supported young person to build relationships in a group setting.

Why did the charity apply for Derbion Cares? 

Children First Derby’s primary focus is to support the most vulnerable people in the local community, and we feel that working with Derbion as part of its Derbion Cares initiative will give us a fantastic opportunity to fulfil this objective and help to raise awareness about the vital work Children First Derby does.

As a hub for the local community to shop, eat, meet friends and socialise, Derbion also provides a positive platform for local businesses and as a charity, we are seeing an increasing demand for our services after the pandemic.

We believe that being part of the Derbion Cares initiative will help us grow, through fundraising and recruiting new volunteers, spread the word about what we do by having pop up information stations, and create fun fundraising events that everyone in the community can get involved in.  

 What will Derbion Cares help Children First Derby achieve? 

Being a part of the Derbion Cares initiative will help Children First Derby by giving us a much wider platform to reach people who otherwise may not have heard about our charity, encouraging them to learn more about who we are, what we do to support local vulnerable children, young people and families, and importantly how they can help support us too. 

Whilst we have a dedicated group of core supporters, we aspire to reach more local people who may want to support a local charity, where our work benefits not only families, children and young people in the local area but the wider community.   

What support as part of Derbion Cares will provide the greatest impact? 

Children First Derby relies on generous public donations and fundraising events to help support   two of our vital services – Mentoring, and Family Support Services.

Any opportunity to fundraise is fantastic, but we hope that with the support of Derbion Cares, which offers access to event space within the centre, the opportunity to talk to people visiting Derbion and help with advertising events on a much bigger scale, we can help to provide the following for our supported families.

• £1,000 raised would enable us to give 10 -20 children a day out to a theme park, including transportation, staff and lunch. These activities help to reduce social isolation, enabling the children to establish positive relationships with others and allowing them to participate in new, creative activities that they might have been unable to experience without our support.
• £5,000 would help towards funding one of our wellbeing programmes that helps support parents with mental health and wellbeing, we also off a free creche to enable them to bring their under 5’s with them. 
• £10,000would help to fund our Autism program that we are currently co-designing with Derbyshire Autism Society. The parenting support programme is to help parents understand Autism and support them when their children are either awaiting a diagnosis or have already been diagnosed with Autism. 

How important is public support for Children First Derby and how can people help? 

Public support is very important to Children First Derby, whether that is attending or volunteering at one of our events, donating a present to our annual appeals, donating a raffle prize, handing out leaflets at an event, sponsoring a person that is raising money for us, a local business sponsoring an event or helping spread awareness about the important work we do by sharing one of our social media posts.   

Children First Derby also relies on the support of its volunteers who play a vital role in the running and delivery of the Family Support and Mentoring Services, without volunteers we would not be able to help support the amount families that currently need our help.

Our current fundraising team are a group of people that are invaluable to children First Derby, they donate their time and efforts to help share our story and raise the much needed funds to help our families.

The public can support us by volunteering some of their time in Family Support, Mentoring or on our fundraising team.