News

Start a Rainbow Walk this May!

This May we are inviting families across the county to stand beside children affected by the coronavirus outbreak by taking part in a Rainbow Walk. We're asking households across the nation to take their daily exercise dressed in rainbow coloured clothes as a mark of solidarity with children who are living in vulnerable situations across the UK, […]

Calling all Home Heroes! Here comes The 2.6 Challenge

Organisers of the UK's major mass-participation fundraising events including the Virgin London Marathon have teamed up to create a brand new fundraising campaign that will take place on the day of the now postponed London Marathon – Sunday 26 April. The campaign, named The 2.6 Challenge, tasks fundraisers with taking on their own 2.6 or 26 […]

Young carer turned top chef Omari McQueen to support CHICKS

The youngest award winning vegan chef in the UK, and the CEO and founder of Dipalicious, 11-year-old Omari McQueen has voiced his support for CHICKS coronavirus fundraising appeal. Omari, who has recently appeared on the BBC’s Blue Peter, says he feels a real affinity with CHICKS having been a young carer for his Mum, who […]

CHICKS launches Facebook Happy Place

After making the difficult decision to stop the provision of CHICKS breaks on Friday 20 March due to the coronavirus outbreak, we have been working hard on the best way to continue providing support for children and young people, at a time when they need it more than ever. Following a fortnight of planning we are […]

Please support our urgent appeal today

After postponing our respite breaks due to the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak, we have now launched an urgent appeal for support. We have provided free five-day respite breaks for UK children living in a wide variety of difficult circumstances since 1992. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced us to postpone breaks indefinitely for the first time in […]

Senior leadership change

CHICKS Chief Executive Officer Andrew Dean has decided to leave the charity in order to explore new opportunities from the start of March 2020. CHICKS Chair of Trustees Steve Brearley has issued the following statement: “On behalf of CHICKS, I can confirm that following a period of loyal service to the charity, Chief Executive Officer Andrew Dean has […]

Breaks to stop from Friday 20 March

After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to stop providing our respite breaks for children and young people from this Friday, 20 March 2020 until further notice, as a result of the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak. In addition to the above, our shops in Exeter, Torquay and Newton Abbot are closed, and all our […]

[POSTPONED] Devon & Cornwall Police to lock up senior officers and VIPs to raise money for CHICKS

Update: Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, this event has been postponed. We will update you when more information becomes available. On Wednesday 18 March 2020, several senior officers of the Devon and Cornwall Police Force (DCP) will be detained behind bars to raise money for CHICKS. Operation Executive LockUp, organised in benefit of the Chief […]

Ade Edmondson to feature on Celebrity Mastermind raising money for CHICKS

We are delighted to announce that actor, comedian, television presenter and musician Ade Edmondson is set to feature on an upcoming episode of BBC One's Celebrity Mastermind, competing to raise money for CHICKS! Ade, along with wife Jennifer Saunders, is a regular supporter of CHICKS. In recent years, he has also appeared as a contestant on […]

How to support CHICKS on AmazonSmile

As you may or may not have seen us announce late last year, you can now support CHICKS when shopping online using the AmazonSmile programme! AmazonSmile is essentially the exact same website as Amazon.co.uk, except on a wide range of products you can donate to a chosen charity for no extra cost. Today, we wanted to […]

6 reasons to volunteer at CHICKS as a student

Here at CHICKS, we rely on a constant stream of budding volunteers to help us provide the best breaks we can to vulnerable young people from across the UK. On every week-long break, three Respite Break Leaders (CHICKS employees) are joined by up to six volunteers whose job it is to be positive adult role models, interacting with the […]

Daleside Retreat renovated for the 2020 season

In preparation for the start of our 2020 break season today (Monday 10th February), the CHICKS Daleside Retreat in Derbyshire has undergone a bit of a makeover! During the 2019/20 off-season, when our team of Respite Break Leaders undergo annual training and the retreat is prepared for the season ahead, Daleside has been renovated both […]