Big Hearts Befriending
Every child should get the chance to laugh, play and socialise regularly, whatever challenges they face at school or at home.
The Big Hearts Befrienders’ initiative helps improve the emotional wellbeing of young people aged 5 to 16 years old who are living in kinship care. Befriending is when a person builds a one-to-one trusted relationship with someone who is in need of some extra support.
Our Big Hearts Befrienders help children create memories to build their self esteem, improve their confidence and encourage them to get more active in their community.
The young people are matched with a Befriender with similar interests and they get to enjoy a variety of social activities every week, in the company of their adult and trained Big Hearts Volunteer.
All activities are free to attend and will be decided in advance with the child and their carers. These can include baking, doing crafts, going to the football, walking in the park or going to the cinema.
If you know someone who could benefit from this project, please contact our Befrienders Project Worker: jane@bighearts.org.uk – 07809 904 228
Big Hearts Befrienders was launched in 2017 to provide additional support to the most vulnerable kinship young people we support.
The project is run in partnership with Space and the Broomhouse Hub, a charity in South West Edinburgh with many years of expertise in befriending.
All our Befrienders are subject to full training and a background check. To date over 60 Hearts fans volunteered with the project.