About KidsOut
We bring smiles and happiness to over 200,000 children each year.
As a nationwide charity, we provide positive experiences for some of the UK’s most vulnerable and disadvantaged children. Known as the ‘fun and happiness charity’, children are at the heart of everything we do. We bring smiles and happiness to over 200,000 children each year. From providing toy boxes to children going into refuge, whose mothers are fleeing domestic abuse, through to arranging Fun Days Out for those children as well as any disadvantaged child who have some form of mental or physical disability, are a carer or whose parents lack the resources to fund such a trip.
In delivering our services, we have partnered with a range of organisations including the Rotary Club of Great Britain and NI as well as the Women’s Aid Federation and over 100 independent women’s refuges up and down the country.
The charity can trace its roots back to 1990 when the first ever children’s Day Out took place, and since then, over 1 million disadvantaged children have experienced a day out. But we also supply:
- Sensory Units for schools with young children who may have special educational needs or challenges.
- Our free-to use ‘World Stories’ 175 digital books in 32 languages accessible by any child around the world, which help children who are struggling with English or have learning issues, a toolkit to enable children with SEN needs including dyslexia and ADHD to help improve their literacy and keep up in the classroom.
- We have partnered with Giglets a digital educational literacy company and are gifting licences to schools for our World Stories to be part of their curriculum, giving access to a full library of 1800 books, 15 new books being created each term time and a dashboard to monitor each child and group, monitoring their progress and homework and enabling them to measure the impact on each child.
- Food vouchers to refuge mums.
- Laptops to children in refuge to help break the digital divide, many children displaced lose essential schooling sometimes waiting up to one year to be allocated into a new school.
- Arts and Sports programmes spanning several weeks which include a form of wellbeing service including trauma management, nutrition and play therapy to support, inform and inspire them.
We are a registered charity in both England & Wales and in Scotland and are regulated by the Charity Commission Registered No 1075789
Our Vision
To be the UK’s leading charity that supports, educates, and brings fun and happiness to the lives of the most vulnerable, forgotten and disadvantaged children.
Our Mission
To passionately champion the wellbeing of vulnerable, forgotten, and disadvantaged children across the United Kingdom, our mission at KidsOut is to provide unwavering support, deliver transformative educational initiatives, and create joy-filled experiences that empower each child to overcome adversity, unlock their full potential, and flourish in a nurturing and inclusive environment. Through our dedicated efforts, we aspire to be a beacon of hope, cultivating brighter futures and fostering a community where every child feels valued, loved, and equipped to become successful future members of our society.
In the year to June 2023:
- We supported over 20,000 children who went into Refuge to flee domestic violence
- We delivered 11,203 Toy Boxes for children in Refuge, some 112,030 toys in total as well as distributing 115,946 toys to disadvantaged children.
- We took over 57,774 children out on Fun Days and workshops across the UK.
- Working with over 10,000 Rotarians, we took in excess of 20,174 disadvantaged children out to somewhere fun for the day, like theme parks, zoos and the seaside.
- We gave laptops to 374 children in refuge, to help them with their schoolwork.
- We provided Sensory Units for schools with young children who have special educational needs or challenges.
- We provided 5,593 £25 food vouchers during school holidays when access to free school meals is not available. This enables the children to have nutritional meals during this time as well as a couple of treats.
- We signed up 13,392 Teachers and 1,767 Non-Teachers to our World Stories and 52 schools brought it into their curriculum, giving access to a huge number of children for whom English is not a first a language or have SEN needs.
Our 35-year history has seen some extraordinary people pass through our doors. While a lot has changed since our beginning, our commitment and determination to help disadvantaged children has remained throughout.
“This opportunity opened doors to Victims of Domestic abuse who never had an experience of a cinema. I see the changes in their faces and a burst of energy”
Refuge worker
“I can’t thank you enough for the toys, I was so upset as my children didn’t have anything and now they do I am happy”