Many of the problems children and young people faced in 1884 are still relevant today. In a number of cases, they have become significantly worse. The children and young people we help face the devastating effects of poverty, drugs, alcohol abuse, isolation and physical and mental abuse and more often than not, their natural play areas are in dangerous neighbourhoods. Quite simply, this is not acceptable! As you can imagine, with many children living in poverty, we’ve still a huge amount of work to do in order to help even more children and young people move on to a brighter future.

Therefore, The Children’s Country Holidays Fund (CCHF) is embarking on a major development plan where, over the next 18 months, we will be significantly expanding our existing services in order to respond to the needs of the young people we help. These developments will hopefully include:

• Raising our age range to include adolescents

• Creating new educational programmes

• Introducing a range of programmes to help with specific challenges such as bereavement or domestic violence

• Introduce a range of activities that build self-confidence, communication skills, social skills and teamwork

• Increasing the number of children and young people we help every year.

These developments will ensure that we will be able to continue to help children and young people of all ages flourish.