'Without volunteers we can't provide our services'

Friends of the Family helps families with free, confidential counselling and support groups. It also trains and provides volunteer 'Befrienders', who help coach children.

The financial year ending 2024 was positive for the charity, seeing their income grow 12 per cent from £118,226 to £132,263.

Expenditure grew too, however, up seven per cent on the 2023/24 to £112,743 from £105,734. It is also facing a volunteer shortage.

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Chair of Friends of the Family Chris Bale (Image: Hampshire Chronicle) Chair of Friends of the Family Chris Bale said: "That year goes down as a success, but we're seven months into 2024/25 and we're facing significant challenges.

"We are short, very short on volunteers, especially 'Befrienders' and the demand for our services continues to grow.

"Families need our help and, as costs continue to rise, fundraising is particularly competitive. Many charities will tell you at the moment it is very hard to find volunteers."

Chris continued: "People seem willing to give money, but less willing to give time. For us through, that is an existential threat because without volunteers we can't provide our services.

"We're advertising, we're appealing, we're using social media, we're wracking our brains, we're doing our best, but please if you are interested in becoming a volunteer...please, please let us know."

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Friends of the Family's annual general meeting took place at St Peter's on Jewry Street (Image: Charles Elliman) Friends of the Family supported 33 children last year and 13 mums received more than 150 individual counselling sessions. 

The charity also provided counselling and support to 40 fathers. Across all projects, there were more than 500 individual counselling sessions for parents.

In its annual report, the charity asserts demand has outstripped supply. Many parents Friends of the Family support come from struggling backgrounds and have mental health issues.

Joanna Smith, operations director at Friends of the Family said: "In terms of funding, I don't want people to get the wrong impression that we're not in need of funds because it's been a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get the charity to a position where, each year, we're covering our costs.

"Volunteers are the beating heart of our charity, we couldn't do two out of our three services without them and they're our main services."

Joanna highlighted the Mums and Young Children groups, as well as the 5s to 13s Befriending programme, as areas under stress due to a volunteer shortage.

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Operations director Joanna Smith with Mayor of Winchester, Cllr Russell Gordon-Smith (Image: Charles Elliman) "We're getting more and more referrals coming in...and we just don't have the volunteers coming through to be matched with those children.

"I think we have about 15 families on our waiting list for volunteers."

Mayor of Winchester, Cllr Russell Gordon-Smith attended the meeting and spoke passionately about supporting children and families.

He asserted: "Helping families, especially considering recent events, particularly Covid and the financial crisis, puts a huge strain and they're the basic building blocks of our society.

"You end up spending vast amounts of money later on to sort out what are, what could be, quite cheap solutions at the beginning."