Children's charity sees demand for services triple

KidsAid supports children as young as three up to the age of 19

A charity that supports children with mental health disorders said demand for its services has tripled since the Covid pandemic.

KidsAid, which is based in Northampton and works across the Midlands and south east of England, provides long-term, trauma-specialised therapeutic support to children.

In 2024-25 the charity worked with 495 children in comparison to 2021-21 when it supported 163 children.

Carla Managan, the clinical lead at the charity, said: "A lot of children never returned to school [after the pandemic], and selective mutism has risen too.

"It surrounds anxiety about going back to school – many of these children struggled in school before the pandemic, then their anxiety increased during the time schools closed."

The charity said it planned to deliver 4,500 therapy sessions to more than 500 children and families this year.

Carla Managan said the charity gets 30 new referrals a month

Mrs Managan said the charity's staff has more than tripled in size since the pandemic.

"During Covid, we had eight therapists and two staff members. Now there are 25 therapists and 10 staff members. We are expanding all the time," she said.

The charity said in 2024 more than 60% of referrals it received were due to children being exposed to abuse, either experiencing it directly or witnessing others being abused.

It costs KidsAid about £2,200 to provide 26 weeks of one-to-one therapy for a child.

The charity said it received no statutory or public health funding, instead its services were financed through a combination of community and corporate fundraising, grants from trusts and foundations and some families contributing to sessions.

KidsAid said it currently received an average of 50 unfunded referrals each month, children in crisis who need help, but whom the charity lacks the money to support.

It said it seeks contributions from schools or applies for grants to support these referrals, but due to an increase in demand it cannot always support every unfunded referral.

Melisha Pillay said the support her foster child got from KidsAid was amazing and made a real difference.

Melisha Pillay has been a foster carer for three years and she sought support from KidsAid for one of the children in her care.

The child was given art therapy in her school for a year to help her understand and learn about emotions.

Ms Pillay said: "The art therapy allowed her to just feel more comfortable and be able to access emotions sometimes through colour, pictures, movement."

The success of the therapy has led to the child being reunited with her dad, Ms Pillay said.

She added that the child was now able to "express the emotion of sadness when she felt sad, but then also able to understand that we can hold two emotions".