Georgia Clark: Ormiston Families

Our speaker today was Georgia Clark, Philanthropy Manager of Ormiston Families, a charity founded some 40 years ago by a family in memory of their daughter. Georgia worked as a fund-raiser for two national charities before deciding that she would prefer to work for a local charity and joining Ormistion. They are active in Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex.

Their vision is to build “safe, healthy and resilient families”, particularly by helping children bounce back from challenges they face. They work with communities and with families affected by offending, providing mental health and wellbeing support.

A lot of the problems are hidden. If a breadwinner goes into prison the family’s finances can be affected and the children can suffer bullying. The children can be helped to regain their confidence and rebuild social networks. Adults can be helped with parenting classes and counselling to address issues remaining from their own childhood issues.

Ormiston’s YouCanBe and Mpower programmes provide support and advice for young women whose children have been taken into care. The “Transforming Rehabilitation” programme helps ex-offenders and their families reconnect with their communities; support options include:

• benefits advice;
• contact with children;
• school attendance;
• parenting advice; and
• relationship advice.

Of course, the Covid-19 pandemic has meant changes to Ormiston’s work. 2020 figures are not yet available but in Essex in 2019 Ormstion worked with 541 people and provided 1,800 interventions. 78% of those they worked with made positive progress towards the goals they had set themselves.