Tip Top Kids Fund

19_th December 2023 - 31_st December 2024

Cork, ireland

To responsed to the pressing needs of children in homeless services, we are launching our Tip Top Kids project – bringing together Trauma Informed Practice (TIP) and Top-Class Care for children who are homeless. Trauma informed Practice (TIP) means: fostering a sense of safety for children; building trusting relationships; offering choices; encouraging collaboration and peer support between children, and parents, participating in healthy activities; encouraging children to find their voices and respecting cultures and challenging negative stereotypes. We want to raise, initially, €100,000 to start our Tip Top Kids Fund so we can ensure that every child who comes through our services has the supports they need to help them thrive. This means:

· improved mental health and greater resilience to cope with stress and trauma;

· better physical health;

· improved confidence and self-esteem and less anxiety. And of course to ensure that parents are well supported so they can parent their children well through the trauma and stress of homelessness. We want to make sure that every child and young person in our services:

· Has the support of an experienced Child and Youth Worker or Family Support Worker

· Has access to relevant developmental and therapeutic supports from qualified practitioners (Occupational Therapist, educationalists, play/art therapists, speech and language supports etc).

· Has the chance and space to play and have fun and to forget, at least briefly, about being homeless. We want to make sure that parents have access to relevant counselling and other therapeutic supports and that they have the resources to provide healthy meals for their children, warm clothing. school uniforms and educational materials and the means to get children to and from school. We also want to keep investing in capacity building activities with staff to enhance their trauma informed practice and in professional support to develop and administer an outcome measurement approach, so we can keep developing the quality of the supports we provide and make the case to our statutory funders of the critical importance of investing in supports to children who are homeless.