In 2020/21
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This year has been very different due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
We have learnt, developed and adapted to new ways of working, which has enabled us to support many children and their families during this year of uncertainty . 
We are proud of our work over this year and would like to thank all our staff, trustees, partners and services users, as well as other key workers for all their hard work and support during this challenging year.

Early Education & Childcare​

Our early education & childcare operations have
​supported 400 children in 2020/21.
All early years operations registered with Ofsted are 'Good'.
CrècheCare supported 2 organisations, providing 857 hours of support and cover.

Family Support
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Due to Covid-19, things looked a little different this year...

We launched many of our services virtually for the first time and saw our online presence rise. We gained local and national recognition for our Virtual Children's Centre.
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We saw our posts reach 261,511 users and we had 45,372 post engagements.

Our Facebook pages gained 292 new likes and we ended the year with 2,243 page followers. 
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Family support is a key area of our work. This year we have supported a record 36,834 family members. 
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This year at Seashells our annual footfall dropped considerably as we focused on supporting the delivery of COVID Secure essential services, but service users still accessed child and family services over 32,500  times.
Kent Community Pantry - Stanhope launched in October 2020 and has  helped 312 households.
Kent Community Pantry - Seashells launched in January 2021 and has helped 226 households, combined that's 538 households.
​The Family Food Bank has issued 12,315 food boxes to families in crisis across Kent, almost a threefold increase this year. These food boxes are equivalent to  172 tonnes of food providing over 410,500 meals. This amount of food has the equivalent retail value of £298,000.
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​Our Swale Food Hub delivered food across the Isle of Sheppey.  254 hampers were delivered; 1,020 residents were supported; and 9,071 meals were provided.
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​FareShare Kent shipped 1,203 tonnes of good quality surplus food with a retail value of over £1.8 million to 230 charities & community organisations in the county. In total, 179,655 trays of food were distributed across these charities. This food has allowed them to provide over 2,860,000 meals to their beneficiaries.

Community Engagement
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The Children and Families Group have been successful in securing funding to develop new and existing services across the county. So many thanks to Kent Community Foundation, Colyer Fergusson Trust, Local Councils, Children in Need, The National Lottery, Asda, DEFRA, WRAP, BAE Systems, Sport England & East Kent Free Masons.
In total 122 volunteers have supported FareShare Kent & The Family Food Bank giving  30,141 hours of support.
In total 18 volunteers have supported Seashells giving 900 hours  of support. This years volunteers have undertaken many courses including Safeguarding, Health and Safety, Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE), Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), GDPR, Information Governance and Prevent/Radicalisation Training.