Harpenden Building Society agree multi- year funding donation with St Albans youth counselling charity

Harpenden Building Society has agreed a three year funding support programme with the St Albans based youth counselling charity, Youth Talk.

Over three years the charity will receive twenty four thousand pounds of funding from the Harpenden Building Society’s Grassroots Endowment Fund, with payments of eight thousand pounds per year.

This additional funding will provide 100 counselling sessions for young people in the St Albans district who are struggling with mental health issues.

Speaking about the important role that Youth Talk play in the local community, Chief Executive of Youth Talk, Trevor Fromant, said, “We provide counselling services to local young people aged 13 – 25 years at a time in their life when they are making an important and potentially turbulent transition from childhood to adulthood.

“With 1 in 4 people in our communities suffering with mental health issues, it is vital that we provide a safe place where young people can come for counselling and support before they are affected by these issues in their adult lives.”

A spokesperson for the Harpenden Building Society said: “As a local business with a strong local history, we pay genuine consideration to the communities we serve and we believe in giving back to these communities wherever we can. We decided to channel our Grassroots Endowment Fund through HCF so we could be sure that this funding would go to a deserving local charity that was close to our hearts.

“We set up our Grassroots Endowment Fund specifically to help the local community which has subsequently led us to being awarded a Corporate Social Responsibility Award and a Mayor’s Pride Award for Community Oriented Business of the Year, both of which recognise our commitment to our local communities.”

The funding agreement between Youth Talk and Harpenden Building Society has been facilitated and will be managed by the Hertfordshire Community Foundation (HCF), an independent charity that aims to encourage local philanthropy, the giving of time, resources or both by local people to help support their local communities.

HCF Director, Helen Gray, spoke about the role the foundation plays in supporting local charity organisations saying, “Since HCF was founded in 1988, we have had great success in connecting people who care in Hertfordshire with those in our local communities in genuine need. Now in our 30th year, we have granted over £11 million of charitable funding to local community groups and organisations; we manage over 100 charitable funds on behalf of individuals, families, companies and other organisations and have supported over 1,000 local charitable groups.”

Working closely with both the Harpenden Building Society and Youth Talk, HCF identified youth mental health as being a key concern for both organisations during their Hertfordshire Matters research, which led to HCF matching the two as funding partners.

The funding agreement has been hailed by the foundation as a fantastic example of how local businesses are able to help local charities and urges other local businesses to consider the ways in which they can help Hertfordshire to thrive.