The Covid-19 global pandemic may be having a negative impact on some charities, but Doncaster-based, award-winning, The Sleep Charity is bucking the trend as it launches its new online training programme to celebrate Small Charity Week 2020 (15th-20th June).
The virtual training platform will initially host the charity’s two introductory courses to help support children and their families to sleep better. The first course – Foundation Sleep workshop – provides basic knowledge and understanding of sleep as well as helping you recognise the importance of sleep for health and wellbeing. The Sleep Success workshop which builds on this information, digging deeper into sleep physiology and looking more into identifying the problems and implementing strategies to improve sleep.
“Our work, up to date, has been carried out through delivery services, workshops and drop-in sessions all across the country,” said Vicki Dawson, CEO of The Sleep Charity and TEDx speaker. “However, Covid-19 brought an unexpected challenge and we’ve met this head on by launching the first stage in our online training programme so that we can continue to support children and their parents who desperately need our help, especially in these difficult and stressful times. With more online courses to come, we want to engage with everyone, from all walks of life and empower the nation to sleep better.”
Since it started in 2012, the charity has gone from strength to strength, supporting 30,000 families a year through the charity and its trained practitioners with its behavioural approach to sleep issues. It has contracts with local NHS clinical commissioning groups and has also won a host of accolades including the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service, FSI Small Charity, Big Impact Award and the GSK Impact Award and Third Sector Award. Added Vicki: “We are a small resource team, supported by a network of volunteers, but we have a big impact. We were delighted to welcome aboard Shaun the Sheep as our sleepy ambassador and this year we launched our ‘The Wake Up Call’ sleep manifesto in Westminster to campaign for improvements to the sleep support available and to ensure that sleep is taken seriously across all age groups.”