Expanding trauma charity’s £10k boost
Lottery grant means women can access therapies
A Bannockburn charity which aims to support women following trauma has been given a lifeline thanks to a National Lottery grant.
Healed Scars, which started up in September last year, has been given the £10,000 funding support by the Awards for All scheme run by the Lottery’s Community Fund.
The organisation was started up to help women find more accessible routes of support from accredited therapists and currently supports more than 200 women - with around three-quarters based within the Forth Valley.
But as the service continues to grow in popularity, it has become stretched and requiring extra support to help keep things going.
Healed Scars’ founder and chairwoman Ewelina Maria Chin - herself a trauma survivor - also believes the impact of lockdown has helped bring existing emotions back up to the surface for some of those they support.
We weren’t expecting Healed Scars to expand so quickly but almost week to week, the referrals have increased Ewelina Maria Chin
Ewelina said: “It took me two years to overcome my trauma and I was blessed with amazing people around me, but I waited almost two years to be referred to services through the NHS.
“I was looking at more and more women who wanted to be strong, only if they could receive the support they needed and we thought of developing a database of different approaches to therapy and provide access to accredited therapists for free.
“I think the pandemic brought things back for people and we saw an increase in the number of people being left on the edge and only really with Healed Scars for help.
“A lot of the ladies we support were coping with their trauma before Covid but the past few months made it more difficult and we have become stronger as a result.
“We weren’t expecting Healed Scars to expand so quickly but almost week to week, the referrals have increased; most of them are self-referrals, but we get five or six emails a week from local organisations and GPs as well.”
Healed Scars work closely with more than 20 vetted providers of services including mindfulness sessions, trauma counselling and CBD therapy, with Ewelina aiming to ensure no one looking for help waits more than a week or two.
But in order to meet the rising demand, the charity has ambitious plans to expand and have been busy trying to acquire financial help to do just that, including a move to a new base in Stirling’s Cowane Street in the coming weeks.
Ewelina added: “It was a very big challenge trying to find available funding, but thankfully this will help secure the therapies for the next six months.
“The big challenge for us right now is to employ more people because we currently don’t have any paid staff and I’m working 60 hour weeks at the moment.
“The ideal plan is to support around 500 women at a time but that requires more funding and a big transformation so we’ve been busy applying for other funding to help us through the next three years.
“It will only increase the number of specialists available and hopefully help a lot of ladies being affected by trauma in their lives.”