Referral Changes
Taking Time To Breathe - An update from Golddigger Trust about changes to our referral process in 2020
1st February 2020
Updated November 2021 - Young people can self-refer to Golddigger Trust services by clicking here and booking a Registration with a member of our Wellbeing Team.
For the past fifteen years, Golddigger Trust has been committed to unearthing value in the young people we work with, equipping them with the tools to make positive life choices and improve their self-esteem to better deal with what life may throw their way. As a local, grassroots charity, we’ve built a reputation for seeing young people’s lives truly transformed, all built on the generous donations of individuals and grant makers who have chosen to partner with this vision.
For some time now, Golddigger Trust’s services have been in high demand from young people across Sheffield seeking support around their self-esteem and wellbeing, particularly from those who are struggling with poor mental health and other issues. Over the last year, we’ve seen a 200% increase in the number of referrals that we’ve received from other professionals, including CAMHS services, GPs, Schools and Social Care, and our incredible team have been working hard to try to keep up with this unprecedented demand. Additionally we’ve seen an increase in the number of vulnerable young people with additional support needs, and a rise in complex situations that young people are facing, all of which has put extra pressure on our limited resources, and has at times pushed us towards filling gaps that have been left by budget cuts in statutory services, rather than delivering the holistic self-worth and wellbeing work that is at the core of who Golddigger Trust is.
As our resources continue to be stretched by the increasing demand for our services, we have recognised that many of our projects now have significant waiting lists for support (for example, our work with young women is already at full capacity until July 2020), and that whilst referrals from other organisations and parents have increased significantly, our financial income has actually decreased. Alongside this, we are becoming acutely aware that we haven’t had the capacity to deliver preventative and early intervention work with young people who may not have any other support, a key part of the unique heart of Golddigger Trust. We have therefore taken a strategic decision to pause accepting any new referrals from 1st February 2020.
We appreciate that this decision may be disappointing to referral partners and families who were hoping to refer young people in the coming few months, and we appreciate your patience as we take time to focus on providing the high quality support that we have become known for with young people that we have already committed to support. We hope to also take time to reflect with partners across the city to create a sustainable approach for the future, reflecting our desire to stay true to Golddigger Trust’s vision to work with young people in a preventative, positive wellbeing focused way, and to positively change the conversation around how young people’s wellbeing is viewed by society, families and young people themselves.
Below you’ll find some FAQs around the practicalities of this decision alongside a video from our Senior Leadership Team, personally sharing more about the reasons for this decision and our plans for the future. If you have any further questions or suggestions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch - we’d love to hear from you.
FAQ’s…
Does this decision affect other open access sessions such as weekly drop ins or 'girls/lads day'?
Our open access groups, such as weekly wellbeing drop ins will continue, and are open to all young people - whether they've been involved in Golddigger Trust support before or not. We will not be accepting any new direct referrals for targetted support at this time, however will be investing time into more outreaching activites which we hope will engage many more new young people in relevant wellbeing based activities and our self-esteem programmes, whilst taking time to create and launch our new mentoring programme structure, 'Aurous'.
Didn’t Golddigger Trust's management see this coming?
We have been aware for some time of the increasing demand for our services, and have been closely monitoring this for the last 18 months with our Trustee board. In Summer 2019, we took a leap of faith to utilise some of our reserves to employ further staff to help us meet this need, but quickly this additional capacity was also filled. We estimate we’re now receiving around 50 new referrals a month from other professionals and parents who have been signposted to contact us. Whilst we see this as a real positive that our work is being commended by others, we also have to acknowledge the tension of not being commissioned/funded by any of these referral partners to pay for or support this work makes this volume of referrals unsustainable. We also acknowledge that we need to invest more time in articulating the scope of Golddigger Trust's support as we have recently seen an increase in referrals for complex support that need more intervention than we are equipped to give. We recognise that being referred from service to service can be a very negative experience for young people and don't want to contribute to this unnecessarily when recieving referrals for specific support that we don't offer. By taking some time to breathe and reflect on the current pattern of work, we are pro-actively investing in re-aligning our work with our values and core objectives as a charity, and in developing a more young person focused approach to sharing about our available support with young people.
Surely more donations is the solution to this, right!?
Thank you for asking! Although we most definitely do need more financial donations to secure the ongoing future of Golddigger Trust’s work, this isn’t the entire picture. While we would be so grateful for an increase in donations as a response to this, and of course continue to be entirely grateful for the ongoing support of our current contributors, this decision is not made from a financial standpoint alone. Our decision is more focussed on ensuring we remain focused on being a young person’s wellbeing charity and centering our resources on ensuring we are reaching the right young people that our charity can support.
This is not to say an increase in your kind donations would not help us! We are currently running a deficit in our budget for 2020 and need to see an increase in our income to continue delivering the support we have committed to over the next year, and to strengthen the charity to allow us to expand to reach more young people in need in the future.
To make a one-off donation, start or increase a regular donation, please visit www.golddiggertrust.co.uk/donate or call 0114 327 1191.
What will happen to any referrals you receive after Feb 1st?
We are wholeheartedly committed to showing young people that they are valuable and wanted, and one of things we hear often from young people is that sitting on long waiting lists at agencies can make them feel the opposite. We don’t want to contribute to this unnecessarily and so we will be contacting any referrers who submit a referral after this time to let them know how young people can self-refer to our services, or to sign post them to other services who may be able to help.
Someone I know needs your help! What should I do now?
Here you'll find links to some other organisations who may be able to offer a wide range of targetted and more general mental health/wellbeing support to young people. Other more general statutory services (such as GP's, Schools, Social Care etc) may also be able to help you access additional services. Our changes in referrals does not affect our programmes in schools and all services remain available to be commissioned by Secondary Schools/Academies and Colleges across Sheffield. Please do get in touch if you're from a local school that would like to commission Golddigger Trust services for you school.
Our open access wellbeing drop in groups continue to be open to all young people, visit our our Drop In Sessions page for further information. Please note that these groups do not offer targetted interventions and are open to young people only (e.g. parents/professionals are not able to attend with young people). Over the next few months, we'll be launching a number of new projects for young people to access further wellbeing support across Sheffield, alongside other current outreach projects (such as our outreach football sessions and self-esteem courses for young men in Lowedges, or our annual 'girls day' in June.)
Can I just pay directly for my child/young person to access Golddigger Trust’s services?
We are committed to offering our community based support to all young people free at the point of use irrespective of their financial background, and so to accept direct payment for our services would contradict what we feel we are called to be. However without the generous donations of individuals and organisations, our capacity for support is signficantly limited. We hope that those who experience the impact of our work first hand would be keen to support the Trust’s ongoing work if they are able so that we can support many more young people in the future. To make a one off or regular donation to Golddigger Trust, please click here.
(Please note, our commissioned services with local schools are not affected and support delivered within schools continues to be bookable by secondary schools and colleges across Sheffield.)
I want to help! Can I volunteer and do something to help?
Thank you so much for wanting to help us in this way! At this moment we’re not able to take on ad-hoc volunteers to deliver frontline work as most of our roles and departments require specialist knowledge, in-depth training and a significant weekly time commitment. If you’re interested in taking part in our Graduate Volunteer Programme, please visit our vacancies page. However we really need support in raising funds to continue the Trust’s work and so would be delighted if you could help in this way- maybe you could take part in a sponsored event or host a fundraising evening with your friends and family?
Having said this, we’re always happy to hear any specific suggestions or knowledge of volunteering areas we haven’t thought of. Please send us any specific suggestions to info@golddiggertrust.co.uk.
If you're not taking on any new referrals, what will staff be doing? What will happen to those who are currently on the waiting list for your services?
Practically we’re going to be as busy as ever (if not more!) over the next few months running our innovative and creative courses and 1:1 support with lots and lots of young people already waiting for support, alongside our open access weekly wellbeing drop in sessions and new outreach programmes. A key reason for pausing accepting new referrals is an acknowledgement that for most of our projects, the current waiting list of young people fills all of the spaces for targeted support that we have available until summer 2020. All young people who have been referred to us before February 1st 2020 will be offered support as soon as we are able to, and many of them should already have heard from us with details of the courses or programmes that they’re allocated spaces on. We appreciate your continued patience as we work through our waiting lists and we’ll be contacting young people to reassure them that their support will be continuing as normal in the next few months.
What does this mean for the future of Golddigger Trust? Will I see less things going on online, on social media etc?
We see the future of Golddigger Trust as bright. This summer we’re looking forward to celebrating our fifteenth year and expect to be supporting more young people than ever during 2020.
We’re excited to see what new ideas and innovation emerges from this time of reflection, and our delivery staff are looking forward to having more time to focus on the young people that we have already committed to support, and those in our schools projects and outreach activities.
As for our online and social media activity, you’ll see regular posts on our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages of upcoming events, helpful blogs and information about our ongoing projects. If anything, you’ll be hearing more about us than you currently do! And of course, please do contact us if there’s anything specific you’d like to know too!
For further information about the reasons how and why we have reached this decision, please view the video update below from Beth and Mandy, the Senior Leadership Team here at Golddigger Trust…