Bolton Wanderers are proud to announce their charity partners for the 2018/19 Sky Bet Championship season.
They are as follows:
National Charity
Our National Charity, in partnership with The Football League will be Mind.
Every year, one in four people will experience a mental health problem, but hundreds of thousands of people are still struggling alone.
Mind provide advice and support to empower anyone experiencing a mental health problem, while they campaign to improve services, raise awareness and promote understanding.
No one should have to face a mental health problem alone. Mind will listen, give support and advice and empower people to understand their condition.
Mind offer a wide variety of services including:
- Info line which offers callers confidential help
- Legal Line which provides information on mental health related law to the public, service users, family members/carers, mental health professionals and mental health advocates
- Award-winning publications and website, now certified by the Information Standard.
- A network of around 135 Local Minds offer specialised support and care based on the needs of the communities they support.
For more information, please visit www.mind.org.uk.
Local Charity
The local charity that we will support this season is Bolton Hospice who add life to days where days cannot be added to life.
They provide hands on nursing care for local people aged 18 and over, who have been diagnosed with a cancer or non-cancer life limiting illness, an illness for which there is no cure.
Bolton Hospice believe that no one in Bolton should die alone, in pain or in fear. They ensure that a patient's last years, months, weeks and days are as pain free, as comfortable and as happy as possible.
Patients can spend time with their loved ones, allowing them to celebrate special occasions and helping them to complete bucket list activities and make special memories.
As a charity, all services are offered free of charge.
For more information, please visit www.boltonhospice.org.uk.
Associate Charity
Our first associate charity is UK Sepsis Trust. UK Sepsis Trust is on a mission to fix the way sepsis is handled in the UK and they do this by:
- Raising awareness of sepsis and what to do if you suspect sepsis
- Training healthcare professionals
- Influencing policy
- Supporting those affected
The primary aim is to save 14,000 lives across the UK every year.
Sepsis is the new name for septicaemia, sometimes described as blood poisoning.
It is the overreaction to an infection in which the body attacks its own tissue and organs. It claims more lives in the UK every year than bowel, breast and prostate cancer combined and can arise from something as innocuous as a small cut, scratch or bite.
If not diagnosed and treated quickly, sepsis can rapidly lead to organ failure and death.
Every year in the UK:
- At least 250,000 people contract sepsis
- 44,000 of these will die, 120 every single day
- 60,000 suffer permanent, life changing after affects
Despite the statistics, awareness of sepsis amongst the public and healthcare professionals is astonishingly low, and earlier diagnosis and treatment could prevent thousands of unnecessary deaths every year.
For more information, please visit www.sepsistrust.org.
Associate Charity
Our next associate charity is Once Upon a Smile.
Once Upon a Smile provide emotional and practical support to bereaved families to enable them to adjust to a new life without their loved one.
The charity offers a variety of support to families through a very difficult time and also tailor support to fit individual needs.
Families are often left to grieve alone with no, or little support available and this can often have a devastating impact on family life and children who have experienced the death of a parent or sibling are more than 60% likely than their non-bereaved peers to be excluded from school.
Bereaved young people report feelings of isolation, being bullied and feeling different to their peers.
Once Upon a Smile provide opportunities for bereaved children and their families to share their thoughts and feelings in a fun and safe environment.
They help to:
- Provide a safe environment to express feelings and emotions
- Increase self-esteem by enabling families to meet other bereaved families
- Provide opportunities to remember the person who has died
- Assist families in talking more openly
- Provide practical support to alleviate added stresses
For more information, please visit www.onceuponasmile.org.uk.
Associate Charity
Our final associate charity is Action for Children Bolton Children’s Rights.
The Bolton Children’s Right service provides independent advocacy support to the children and young people of Bolton who are looked after by the local authority, are subject to child protection plans or those with disabilities.
They work with children and young people between 7-18 years, supporting them to have a voice, be listened to and to share their wishes and feelings with professionals in their lives or in their families.
The Bolton’s Children’s Right service supports children and young people in numerous ways, for example, to attend meetings, make complaints, have a say about where they live and who they live with and to contribute to their care/protection plans.
A lot of the children and young people supported have already had difficult life experiences and limited opportunities to participate in positive, social family experiences.
Additional funds donated to their service helps to undertake a wide and varied range of social activities on a one to one basis, with siblings or as a group, enabling them to have new experiences, increase their self-confidence and to have positive social interactions.
For more information, please visit www.actionforchildren.org.uk.