Partner With Us:

Churches

There are lots of ways to partner with us as a church, from donating to starting an Emerge project in your local hospital.

Partner Financially

If you would like to make a donation, please fill out our donation form. It provides you with our account details, and asks for your information (so we can thank you!)

Partner Prayerfully

Our motivation for everything we do in Emerge is our Christian faith.

The best way to partner with us in supporting young people is to pray – for our young people, and for our team of staff and volunteers.

We regularly share updates about what’s going on in Emerge and our impact with our Church partners. These also include prayer points to help you know how to pray for us and our work.

Speaking Engagements

We love connecting with churches to share what we do. We can send someone to speak at your church service or event. This is a key way we raise awareness about Emerge and grow our teams of volunteers.

We also offer bespoke training to churches and church-related groups to help those looking to support young people with their mental health. These sessions can be catered to your focus and audience. We have provided training at church and charity youth worker training days.

If this is something you are interested in, please email info@emergeadvocacy.com or contact your local Emerge project to arrange a speaking engagement.

Volunteer With Us

Predominantly, we form teams to support young people in our communities through our links with local church networks. Here we find people with pastoral experience and caring attitudes, who make great volunteers by supporting young people, baking cakes for hospital staff, or joining our Backstop team.

If you have any willing members in your church, check our contact list for a project near you and get in touch, or browse our volunteering opportunities.

Starting an Emerge Project

We would love to see more and more projects across the UK, where volunteers go into their local hospital to support young people in crisis. We are in the process of researching and planning how we replicate the Emerge model by equipping and empowering churches to go into their local hospitals.

If you would like to explore what starting an Emerge project could look like for your church, please email our Replication Researcher: lucy.hamill@emergeadvocacy.com

Information For Your Church

Emerge is a Christian Youth Work charity which equips and enables churches anywhere in the UK to support young people who are in their local A&E hospital wards because of self-harm, a suicide attempt or an emotional crisis. Emerge teams go into A&E in the evenings, being available until 11pm to be there with young people aged 10-25.

As caring, trained people who are not part of the statutory system, we are uniquely positioned to draw alongside young people and be a voice of ho-e when they need it most. We never take the place of mental health services, but support young people in the midst of their journey. We can be a friend, advocate, comfort, tea-drinking companion, shoulder to cry on, card game supplier and, in the face of despair, we are carriers of hope, peace and joy.

Today we employ a number of staff and run projects that are open each night of the week, providing follow up support during the day, training for parents and professionals and schools work as well as starting new projects. But we didn’t start like this. We started with one person with a vision and no money. Here’s the good news… if your church has some people with the vision and a little money, you can do this too.

We have the template, we’ve written the policies, worked out many kinks. We will deliver the training, help in conversations with the hospitals and be with you every step of the way.

We are in the process of developing our model for churches running Emerge projects. Below is an idea of what it could look like for your church.

It starts with what you have…

  • Evening sessions only
  • 2-5 volunteers, volunteer Project Lead
  • Team members go into hospital 2 or 3 nights each week singly or in pairs.
  • Project Lead coordinates and supports the team and is the point of contact for the project with the hospital and Emerge Advocacy.
  • Backstop support provided by Project Lead or suitable person from church i.e. safeguarding officer/youth pastor.

…grows into what you’d love it to be…

  • Evening sessions in hospital and daytime follow up
  • 2+ volunteers, Paid Project Lead
  • Building on evening sessions, the team begin to offer follow up support during the day.
  • Having a paid person becomes necessary for consistency and good oversight of the work.

…and inspires and facilitates more projects!

  • Well established Project Lead and wider team, including Youth Worker, Prayer Supporters and committed volunteers.
  • Building on your experience and contacts and in partnership with Emerge, you could support other churches to set up a project in their local hospital.

The Cinnamon Network

In 2019, Emerge Advocacy won The Cinnamon Network Project Lab Competition – a national search for promising, replicable projects; projects already making a real difference in their community with the potential to be replicated by churches nationally. Emerge are now working with The Cinnamon Network as part of their Project Incubator to enable local churches to take up the challenge of being a voice of hope to young people in crisis, in whichever hospital in the UK they find themselves.

William Wates Memorial Trust

In 2024, Emerge began a three-year project, funded by WWMT to scope, pilot and offer our church-based replication vision nationally. As part of this, we are speaking with churches across England and Wales to find out what they would need to run a successful project and tailor our support package accordingly. We are also keen to speak with churches looking to pilot this with us. If you would like to be part of this, please get in touch.