KH Hairdressing commits to ChildLine

KH Hairdressing – the largest salon group in the East Midlands – is committing to a year of fundraising activities to help boost funds for ChildLine.

The group recently launched a ‘vote for your charity’ campaign to ask clients and employees working in their 19 salons, which charity they would like the group to adopt. ChildLine won outright polling over 2,500 votes.

Local Update from Jenni Cowlishaw [ Sept 2010 ]

Our East Midlands counselling centre, in Nottingham, has been refurbished to accommodate seven more counselling desks and we currently have 93 registered volunteer counsellors and a further 25 are currently undergoing the volunteer’s essential training.

The base has also successfully implemented a new online counselling service whereby children and young people now have the opportunity to speak to a counsellor through live 1:1 chats via our website. The service can also be used by children who are deaf or have a disability which makes it hard for them to use a phone. The online service launched in October 2009 and, already, the response from children has been overwhelming.

Recruiting more volunteers

By 2011 we need to increase our volunteer numbers and grow our team of supervisors who provide the professional direction and support on which volunteer counsellors rely. This will help ensure that when a child does pick up the phone, or logs on to ChildLine, there is a fully supported, trained counsellor ready to talk to them whenever they need help. Each volunteer counsellor costs £1,600 to recruit, train and support.

Speaking about the partnership, KH Hairdressing’s creative director, Darren Messias , said: “Fundraising and reaching out to the community is a very important activity for the whole group. It’s incredibly motivating to raise funds and it brings us all together – salon teams and clients – in a way that creates a really strong bond.

“We managed to raise over £37,000 for Breakthrough last year so of course the pressure is on now to see what we can achieve for ChildLine.”

“ChildLine does amazing work, and aside from fundraising we’re hoping to help raise awareness that all children and young people can contact ChildLine with any problem they might have, big or small.”

Jo Dale, ChildLine/NSPCC community corporate manager said: “I am delighted that KH Hairdressing has chosen ChildLine as their charity of the year.

“As 87 per cent of our funding comes from donations and fundraising, our work is heavily dependent on the support and generosity of the general public and companies.

“ChildLine is only able to answer two-thirds of the 2.7m calls it receives every year which is why we need to expand the service to help more children and young people.”