Aims

• This funding programme has two key aims:
  • To support charities that help children and young people who have experienced Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) to overcome their trauma and thrive.
  • To support charities that help parents address their own severe mental health issues to prevent them from harming their children.

What are ACEs?

• Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are defined as “potentially traumatic events or chronic stressors that occur before the age of 18 and are uncontrollable to the child.” They include the following:
  • Sexual abuse
  • Physical abuse or neglect
  • Emotional abuse or neglect
  • Living in a household where there is domestic violence
  • Living with a parent with substance abuse
  • Living with a parent who has a mental illness
  • Losing a parent through death, abandonment, or divorce.
  • Having a parent in prison

What they fund?

• The two key areas of support are:
  • Support for children and young people
    • Under this focus, they wish to partner with charities that support children and young people who have suffered one or more ACE, and they do so through evidence-based, trauma-informed therapies.
    • They only support charities that have a specialist, single focus on one or more of the following:
      • Childhood sexual abuse
      • Living in a household where there is domestic violence, and/or physical and/or emotional neglect
      • Living with a parent who has a mental illness and/or substance abuse
      • Bereavement and complex loss, including children and young people bereaved by suicide, murder, manslaughter, substance addiction, or who have a parent in prison.
  • Support for parents
    • In England alone, nearly half (48%) of adults have experienced at least one ACE. Around 9% of the population have experienced four or more ACEs. While ACEs are prevalent in any socio-economic group, they are 10 times more prevalent among the 20% least privileged in the society.
    • They know that many adults only begin to face their own ACEs when they become parents, making this a crucial time for support.
    • Under this focus, they wish to partner with specialist charities that solely focus on supporting parents and complex family challenges by delivering:
      • Evidence-based, whole-family, trauma-informed programmes that help parents to confront their own ACEs and help to break the intergenerational cycle of trauma and abuse.
      • Evidence-based, whole-family, trauma-informed programmes for families where a parent or caregiver has a mental illness or substance addiction and is at risk of harming their children.

Who can apply?

• They welcome applications from UK registered charities that work either regionally or nationally and:
  • Have as their key focus preventing and/or reducing the impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) – helping children and young people, and parents and caregivers.
  • Use trauma-informed approaches and evidence-based interventions
  • Are actively patient led in shaping, running, and improving their services
  • Can demonstrate real impact through their own evaluations or independent research
  • Have an annual income of less than £20m and at least 5 years’ audited or independently examined accounts

Ineligibility Criteria

• If your charity is one of the following, you are not eligible to apply if:
  • Your charity provides some support for children and young people who have experienced ACEs, but this is not your sole focus
  • Your charity's sole focus is supporting children and young people who have experienced ACEs, but through the provision of sport and leisure activities, mentoring, befriending, peer support, etc.
  • Your charity supports adults who have experienced ACEs but you do not have a specialist programme for parents to help break the intergenerational cycle of trauma and abuse
  • You are a general counselling charity
  • You are a homelessness charity
  • You are a hospice

For more information, visit James Tudor Foundation.

https://www.jamestudor.org.uk/mental-health