Trygga Barnen
Trygga Barnen offers individual and group support as well as activities for children and adolescents who live in, or have grown up in, a family with problems connected to substance abuse or mental illness. The foundation also works preventively by spreading knowledge, removing taboos in society and raising the child’s perspective in the public debate.
Trygga Barnen (Safe Children) has received support from H.M. Queen Silvia’s Foundation CATCH for the project “Trygga Hjältar” (Safe Heroes). This project aims to help children and adolescents living under difficult circumstances to find adequate support and help in their local municipality, through volunteering adults in their community, who often have their own experience of growing up with addiction or mental illness in the family – also called “Trygga Hjältar, or “Safe Heroes”. Together they form a nationwide network of enthusiasts who work together to give more children and adolescents a chance to find the help they are entitled to by creating a link between the children, support activities and the authorities. The problem today is not that there is no help available, but that the children do not find the support – and the support does not find the children. As a result, only a few of all these children get the help and support they are granted by society. The heroes, who are all involved on a voluntary basis, work to reach out and get in touch with the target group locally, e.g. through school lectures, walking together on the streets at night and through social media. The goal is for Safe Heroes to be available to children and young people throughout the whole of Sweden.