As a children’s mental health charity, we support dozens of families every day through our services.

But did you know we are also proud to be active members of our local communities, doing what we can to help whenever possible? As we move into the summer holidays, we wanted to reflect on a new initiative we ran this spring – PROM-Unity. 

A real team collaboration 

Over time and from a variety of sources, our incredible fundraising team had received a big donation of prom dresses and accessories from our supporters. At the same time our environmental committee were exploring ways to ensure we recycle or re-use items in our office. To round it off our community engagement team were looking for new ways to work with local Essex schools. 

These three things combined all led to our very first PROM-Unity event!  

We knew there was a local need, to support families and school leavers who were finding the pressure and stress of their prom events worrying. We are living in a challenging financial environment, following the pandemic and ongoing cost of living crisis. We also know that children and young people are increasingly concerned about climate change and how it will affect their adult lives. 

For us, our PROM-Unity event meant we could relieve some of this pressure and anxiety they were facing. We decided to open our office on a Saturday in April, and welcome school and college leavers to find a prom outfit for free. 

Raising awareness and planning

Deciding to run this event was the first step, the next was to plan and promote it. Our marketing and communications team were on hand to support. We posted across our social media platforms, including in numerous Facebook groups. We encouraged people to help spread the word by sharing. A registration form was created, and the bookings began to roll in. Schools were emailed, newsletters were sent, and we were inundated by kind offers of more donations and support from the local community. 

The day was also a great opportunity for our army of volunteers to get involved. Following a request from our volunteer manager asking who was free and willing to help we received many offers of help. Our community engagement team took the lead in the planning and also found two women who could run hair style tutorials on the day. Our holiday club room became the ‘Prom Room’ with rails of outfits lining the walls. By Friday afternoon all was set. 

The day arrives

Staff and volunteers arrived bright and early. Buoyed up on hot drinks everyone took their places; on reception checking names, in the prom room to help with choices and by the dressing rooms ready to run back and forth armed with dresses and suits. The hair and make up team were upstairs and there were also a selection of shoes and accessories ready to compliment every colour or style. 

The doors opened and parents and children began to arrive. Eyes widened at the choices available and soon people were leaving with arms carrying with great care their chosen outfit. The morning flew by, with almost everyone finding something they liked – even if it wasn’t a dress or suit it might have been a pair of shoes or a shirt – something that eased the pressures of getting ready for prom. 

What happened next?

The day was a huge success but due to the generously of donations from the community we still had dozens of outfits left.  

We decided to continue with drop ins on two of the days our office stay open later during term time It made perfect sense to use this time as an opportunity for those who may have missed our April event.    We also saw that our last-minute drop ins were some of our busiest! 

In June we were delighted to take up the kind offer from Debut Academy to come in for a day to help some pupils from a local secondary school to get ready on the day. Our training room became a beauty salon for the day and the students left all set for their big night.

At the end of both the event and the drop-ins 112 young people across our local communities went away with an outfit. We received many letters and notes of appreciation, as well as a few photos from the prom days! We loved being able to help, in some small way. 

A local secondary school also emailed us and said, “A huge thank you on behalf of our school. Prom can be very expensive and put a lot of pressure on families, but with the help from Kids Inspire several students from the school were kitted out with beautiful dresses that had been donated.” 

Final thoughts!

Each one of us who were involved with this have at least one special moment from PROM-Unity. For one it’s the mum whose face lit up (and eyes welled up) at seeing their child spin around with a smile of joy at finding the dress. For another it’s knowing that every dress, suit or outfit chosen means we are doing our bit to avoid sending clothes to landfill. 

Thanks to one of our longstanding supporters, Pro Carrier we have been able to store our remaining items safely. We have already decided to run the event again next year so keep an eye out for the return of PROM-Unity in spring 2025! 

We would love to hear from you if you were one of those who got a dress, suit or outfit from us. Below are a few pictures that some young people and families shared with us from their prom day - all wearing a prom outfit they got from our event.