KidsOut Charity: Can you make happy memories for a child fleeing domestic abuse?

We have teamed up with the children’s charity, KidsOut, as part of a national project to ask football, rugby, and cricket clubs right across the UK, to help create happy memories for children who have experienced domestic abuse, including emotional, violent, and even sexual abuse.

Each year, thousands of children along with their parent, flee domestic abuse to seek safety in over 650 women’s refuges and safe houses across the UK. Arriving in a refuge, usually with no more than the clothes they are wearing, these children will have left everything familiar behind them, including family, friends, pets, possessions, and their schools, and are likely to face living in one room in a refuge with their parent and siblings for up to two years.

KidsOut provides these children, plus children with life-limiting disabilities, those who are carers to parents and or siblings, and children whose families live in extreme poverty, with new toys and fun trips out to places like the cinema, the zoo, or the seaside.  The charity says that many of the children they support have previously never been to a cinema or zoo, owned a new toy, or even seen the sea.

Can you be a Sports Champion of Change and help some of the most disadvantaged children in the UK?

With the support from legends from football, rugby and cricket, we are asking clubs if they can help to provide a wellbeing experience for these children by gifting tickets to matches or hosting a behind-the-scenes tour, or a sports activity day, so they can forget their worries for a while and start to create new and happier memories.

With thousands of children living in refuges and safe houses around the UK, we need help for children living locally to you.

If you can help create a happy memory for a vulnerable child and give them an occasion when they can forget their worries for a while and just have fun, please go to: www.kidsout.org.uk Sports Champions for Change https://kidsout.org.uk/sports-champions-for-change/

Sadly, statistics show that domestic abuse rises during major football tournaments, with the latest reports stating a 38% rise when England loses. However, it’s not much better when they win, with a rise of 26%. The impact is not limited to adults with often children witnessing, hearing, or personally experiencing abuse themselves. The impact can have a profound effect on children, impacting them through adulthood, often leading to poor mental health, drug and alcohol misuse, and even suicide