Christian charity Fegans, which provides school counselling and parenting support, has been acquired by children’s charity, Spurgeons with the aim of strengthening its support services for vulnerable children across the UK.
“We are two charities with a proud history, 150 years old with so many parallels because we are founded by two amazing men of faith who saw the need of children in the streets in London and wanted to respond to that,” Spurgeons Children Charity CEO Ross Hendry told Premier.
It was announced that, after “over a year of prayer and due diligence work”, Fegans will become part of Spurgeons Children Charity in order to “build on the charity’s current services that support parents, whilst enabling them to begin providing counselling for children through schools.”
Speaking about the acquisition, Hendry said it was “a really big step” for both charities but their shared “Christian mission to witness into the dark corners of society” will enable them to achieve even greater things together.
“What we've discovered is that… by coming together as one charity, we multiply our ability to act and to provide a joined-up sense of support to the families. So, to give you an example, there's a child that we will come into contact with whose dad is in prison. That child is suffering bullying and has mental health problems. So, we will be able to link them up to a Fegans counsellor who will be able to give them support,” he said.
Fegans, which mainly operates in southeast England, provides counsellors in schools for those children with mental health issues as well as parenting support both in person and online. Although it will operate under the Spurgeons banner, the Fegans name will be maintained.
“We really want to honour the work that Fegans do, and the heritage that Fegans bring into Spurgeons. We absolutely want to keep the Fegans name and identity alongside key areas of their work and activities. For example, if you are receiving counselling from Feg
There will be minimal changes for Fegans employes who will all become part of the Spurgeons workforce. Fegans CEO, Ian Soars will join the senior executive team at Spurgeons.
“We would cherish people's prayer for that marriage of the two charities…for all of that to work well. We've got great ambitions. And we believe this is a really God ordained and blessed process that we're undertaking. We’ve put our egos aside and focused on how can we best be a witness for Jesus, in those complex areas, in our communities in those dark areas, our community. We need prayer for protection because we're working in difficult areas; for provision… and then for providence that actually God places us in the right place at the right time to meet the families that we need to meet.”
You can learn more about the work of Spurgeons and Fegans here.