A CHILDREN'S charity has produced an information booklet in a bid to update its image.

Barnardo's wants people in the region to know it no longer runs children's homes and instead works on projects supporting and helping young people. The charity's last orphanage closed 40 years ago, and it has not had a residential care centre in the North-East since 1991.

The booklet, Our Work in the North-East and Cumbria, explains how and where Barnardo's works.

Jonathan Ewen, director of children's services in the North-East, said: "Barnardo's is famous for something it no longer does - running orphanages.

"We are the UK's largest children's charity and more than 90 per cent of adults in the UK recognise our name, but do they know what we do.

"The fact is, many people have no idea about Barnardo's work in the 21st Century.

"Every year we help more than 11,000 children, young people and their families in the North-East to overcome severe disadvantage - problems like abuse, homelessness, poverty and the challenges of disability.

"We have 40 services which work with children in difficult circumstances, and whose well-being is under threat, to stop childhood or teenage problems leading to an unhappy or difficult childhood."

Copies of the booklet are available by calling 0191-240 4820.