Coin it for kids by rounding up all your old money

Mental health pleas rejected

YOU could help to save a child in crisis just by rummaging down the back of the sofa to round up your old pounds.

As part of our Christmas campaign for the NSPCC and Childline, launched yesterday, we’re asking you to make a difference by digging out your old coins and taking them to Barclays.

Every year 175,000 calls from troubled youngsters across the UK don’t reach the free counselling service, due to a lack of funding, growing demand and lack of staff.

Childline needs an extra £500,000 annually to close the gap. So the Daily Mirror has joined the Light Up Christmas for Children campaign. Just take your old pound coins and leftover foreign currency to a branch of Barclays, where staff will send it all to the NSPCC.

NSPCC boss Peter Wanless said just one of your old pound coins can go a long way. “Small sums can make a huge difference, especially to a young person’s life,” he said.

“Four people donating one old pound could pay for a Childline counsellor to answer a call from a child or teenager, while £27 could pay for an in-depth counselling session, often the first time a young person feels listened to.” The old round p o u n d s have been replaced by a new forgery-proof 12-sided coin.

There were £400million-worth of old pounds in circulation just before they stopped being legal tender on October 15, so there are still plenty out there.

Mr Wanless added: “We are really grateful to Barclays for running this fantastic initiative and having their staff ready to collect the old pound coins.”

Dame Esther Rantzen, who founded the 24-hour Childline counselling service in 1986, agreed your old coins can make a huge difference. But it’s not just old coins and currency that could help save lives. A WORRYING 150 children a day are being refused vital mental health treatment.

In the past two years, 100,000 UK children referred to local mental health services were rejected, says the NSPCC.

This was despite Childline giving record numbers of counselling sessions to youngsters about suicide and mental health issues.

The NSPCC obtained the figures via a Freedom of information request to NHS trusts in England, which found that out of 652,023 cases referred to child and adolescent mental health services, 109,613 children were turned away between 2015 and 2017. One in five trusts that responded failed to disclose rejections.

Mental health is now the most common reason for Childline contact. The NSPCC wants the Government to shift its focus to prevention, so youngsters do not reach crisis point.

Posed by model DESPERATE Child in crisis