Forget-Me-Notts is our UK-based project whose purpose is to:
Empower local people and local businesses to support their social care system in meeting the practical emergency needs of the most vulnerable children in their local community, letting each child ‘know’ they are not forgotten.
Through a referral process we deliver targeted, practical help to ‘at risk’ children across the East Midlands and the Fylde Coast in Lancashire, in many cases helping to prevent children from being taken into care.
How does it work?
Once the child’s needs are assessed, Social Services, and other authorised agencies, submit a referral to our Central Co-ordination Team with an overview of the family’s situation and a list of things that would significantly improve the quality of the children’s environment. Our main focus is on beds and bedding but the list could be anything from bedroom furniture, house clearances, storage to safety gates or cutlery. These things are basic necessities in any home but are not so easily obtainable for families dealing with unemployment, homelessness or escaping domestic violence where cost becomes a big issue. So many children do not have an adequate or safe place to sleep and requests for beds keep coming up in 90% of our referrals. Bed poverty has a profound impact on so many aspects of their lives and we are focused on providing complete bed solutions for the children and parents.
Then what?
In order for us to fulfil the ever-increasing number of requests, we ask our local communities and businesses for support. People can help in the following ways…
Following our social media pages to look out for current requests
Donating pre-loved bed frames and other needed items
Purchasing items from our Amazon wish list
Make a financial donation online
Plan a fundraiser
Organise a bedding collection
It can really inspire people when they are able to see exactly what their donation is helping with. Although we can’t ever show pictures of the children we are providing for, the feedback we receive confirms that this is having a huge impact and empowering social workers to make a difference.
UK Hubs
We are humbled to have organisations across the UK who we are partnering with to widen the impact of this service. Each hub has volunteers, transport, storage and passion to serve the vulnerable children in their community. Together with our Central Coordination Team (CCT) we coordinate the collection and delivery of items requested by Social workers in the local area. The Lancashire Hub is up and running with the Liverpool Hub coming on line soon.
Lancashire Hub
We are delighted to be partnering with Hope Lytham in Lancashire and to have opened our first Forget-Me-Notts hub outside the East Midlands with them. Lancashire County Council identified the Fylde Coast as being the most under resourced area for asset based support due to its broad socio-economic spread. There was no service like this in the area. Having identified this gap in the care structure, the team have been completing referrals since July 2020.
We have decided to keep the name ‘Forget-Me-Notts’ because of the historical roots of the project and purposeful message it conveys.
Follow this link to see how you can help us fulfil referrals or click here to contact the team.
At Christmas and Easter we give chocolate gifts to children who are in care or known to the care system locally.
For many of these children this will be the only gift they receive. Social workers tell us that although this may seem a small gesture, to the children it means a lot; it shows them they are not forgotten.
We’ve been astounded by how many people have donated chocolate eggs and selection boxes for us to distribute. If you want to get involved in this then please get in touch and we will let you know more detail.
Connect via Facebook
LIKE & FOLLOW our Facebook page. We share needs here so you will always be the first to see if you can help
Contact the Team
For all Forget-Me-Notts enquiries, please email
forget-me-notts@operation-orphan.org or call 07435 654856
Our unique funding model
We believe in working with businesses to help fund the administration costs of Operation Orphan. We were incredibly fortunate that for 2019, local corporate sponsors agreed to underwrite 100% of the administrative costs of Forget-Me-Notts. This year we are looking for other businesses to support our local project - it is because of these incredible relationships that we can confidently guarantee that 100% of donors' money goes directly into our projects. This principle of partnering with businesses to help support our life-changing work is at the core of how we are structured.
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