We are delighted to announce that Children in Need has awarded nearly £30,000 (£9,000 for three years) to fund our ECHO Teens programme, specifically a series of focused workshops and fun outings for teenagers.

This incredible donation will be used to fund specialist sessions for our ECHO Teens over the course of three years. The focus of these sessions will vary and include: advice and information about the heart and living with a heart condition, advice and support on transitioning to adult services, and also wellbeing and lifestyle sessions centred on: diet & exercise, stress & anxiety management, relationships, careers, smoking, drugs & alcohol.

We’re also going to be planning lots of fun activities enabling young people to get to know one another and make friends and have a good time – plus exploring new ECHO Teen challenges and activities, similar to our O2 challenge last year.

These sessions are going to be run by Tania Weekes, a professional youth worker with many years experience working with young people. Tania has already managed a number of ECHO Teens events in the past and she is excited to begin the new programme and meet with ECHO Teens members again.

We’d like to give a huge thank you to Children in Need for recognising the importance in our ECHO Teens work and helping us to part-fund our teen programme for the next three years.

ECHO has undergone financial difficulty in the past two years, having received less in donations than it has done in the past. Awards such as this Children in Need grant are a huge help for us in delivering our services and we are extremely grateful.

We do still need help though – and if you are in a position to donate or fundraise for ECHO please do support us if you can. Our ambition is that in the future we will secure funding for a full-time youth development post supporting teenagers on a more regular basis in and out of the hospital.