Key Impact Data
Our most recent year has seen an expansion in the number of families supported. This was largely driven by the return to face to face working with families through our children's centre services, from March 2021 onwards, more than compensating for the drop in families supported through the Family Food Bank. The virtual work we started at the beginning of the pandemic has continued to prove popular and only declined slightly with the move back towards face to face services. We have also seen a steady return of children to our early education and childcare focussed services during the year. There was a decrease in the number of families supported through our food bank work, after a record year during the first year of the pandemic. A similar reduction was seen at FareShare Kent, with the tonnes of food supplied to charities falling by about a third in line with the food made available to us. This was still almost double what we achieved during the pre-pandemic year 2019/20 though. There has also been a reduction in the number of charities undertaking food support work for their beneficiaries in Kent and Medway, as they have returned to their core activities after the end of the pandemic lockdowns. We were recognised as a Family Hub by the Family Hubs Network early in 2021 and were also a finalist at the Kent Charity Awards for the Children's Charity of the Year category.