Providing Community Support and Social Inclusion for Disabled Children and Young People
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Previous reports: 2007/8 | 2006/7 | 2005/6 | 2004/5
What we do
Our mission is to improve the quality of life for disabled people, their families and carers, by promoting community support and social inclusion.
HFBU supported 185 families this year.
Our main activities
Short break care
We provide short breaks for the families of disabled children by recruiting, assessing and approving carers from the diverse local communities in Hackney. Our professional staff, working under the Fostering Services Regulations 2002, assess, support, train and encourage the development of carers ensuring that care is high quality and accessible to children with a range of backgrounds and needs. Our carers work hard to offer children and young people opportunities to enjoy fun, enriching experiences which support their development and inclusion in the local community.
During the year, flexible short break care services were provided to 20 children and young people.
Homesitting
Some families prefer their children to be cared for in their own home and for some children, whose homes have been specially adapted to accommodate their needs, homesitting is the best option. "Sitters" work from the family home but usually work with families to enable the children to access play and other fun activities in the community. Our homesitting service provided support for 16 children during the year.
"When HFBU first made contact with me I was in a bad way, I felt overwhelmed and felt I was sinking. More than anything it's the understanding into my situation that not even my family can provide, that helped me to get up." A parent 2008
"J (carer) does a lot more than general care at home, she provides activities she knows really interests my son. He really looks forward to his weekly visit to her. Each week he gets ready ..with such joy. He gets on with all her family, and feels a part of them." A parent 2008
"The care that has been provided via HFBU means so much to me. It has given (my son) an outlet to be with someone who totally understand him and in whom he can confide in ways he is unwilling to with me." A parent 2008
"I have total confidence in my son's carer which I've never had with any other carers. It's made us into a family. For me, seeing the happiness and confidence in my sons is all the motivation I need to keep going forward." A parent 2008
Family SupportOur Family Support Service, operated in partnership with Hackney Children's Social Care, continues to develop. Volunteers work alongside families to provide practical support and enable them to access local resources. In all thirty-four families and sixty nine children received support, information and advice this year.
Parenting Support
This year with further funding from the Parenting Fund and the Waterside (Porticus) Trust we have developed our service for families of disabled children with challenging behaviour. As well as individual support on a wide range of practical issues families can come along to a monthly Family Club. While the children and their siblings enjoy some really great activities run by trained playworkers, their parents meet to relax and offer mutual support and advice facilitated by project staff. Over the year 21 parents and 28 children benefited from this service. Comments from parents make it clear why this service is so highly valued:
"Without this group I don't think I'd have a family. Saturday is a really convenient time. My children love it- the group is my family. I can forget about my kids and think about myself. When I wake up (on Saturdays) it's like going to a party. I can share my problems- I have confidence in the group". A Parent 2008
"I see life as like an ocean and it's very easy to drown. Care like this is like a life ring, that keeps us afloat and without it, it could be a disaster".
Parent 2008
This funding enabled us to provide a day trip out and follow up training in managing challenging behaviour. These training courses, which were identified by parents attending the Family Club, included individual work with each parent on what worked well and what difficulties remain, as well as giving parents one-to-one time to discuss personal experiences.
The Toy LibraryThe toy library helps to increase play opportunities available to local disabled youngsters who find it difficult to access mainstream play. The new toys and equipment which the children specifically requested were purchased last year and have been very well used. Despite a short break in having a dedicated toy library worker due to lack of funding, we recruited a parent who has a passion for toys. As a mother of an autistic child herself she is well placed to understand and meet the needs of many of the families in providing them with a quality and responsive Specialist Toy and Resource Library. She takes toys out to families who find it hard to access the resource and supports parents with ideas for developing play with their disabled children. This post is only funded for 6 months and we will be trying to raise more secure funding next year.
143 children benefited from the toy library last year.
"The HFBU toy library is a fantastic service for me and my family... we are on a low income and we have a small flat, so we have little space to store large toys... There is always a warm welcome when we come to the toy library." A parent 2008.
Getting togetherThanks to the support of an individual donor our families and carers had a fantastic coach trip out of town to Paradise Wildlife Park, seeing amazing creatures and having fun with the play activities. Despite the downpour families really enjoyed themselves and further friendships were formed. Luckily the rain held off for our Summer picnic; we had fun in the outdoors with face painting, football, parachute and enjoyed a delicious picnic lunch. Our festive trip to a pantomime at the celebrated Hackney Empire proved very popular, as did our lovely party during the February half term break. Over 70 people came to enjoy delicious food, games, face painting, Potty Patrick our favourite clown and relaxation therapy so parents could really relax. We took this opportunity to consult with parents on how they would like to see the future for themselves and their children in Hackney.
Hackney Families TogetherWe have been key players in developing the Hackney wide consultation group for parents of disabled children. The group, known as Hackney Families Together, has made its views known on play provision, social care, housing and education in the Borough. The group enjoyed a fantastic Summer party held at Dalston's new music venue, Café Oto. Parents got creative with some cup decorating, relaxed with a range of therapies, enjoyed a delicious hot lunch and danced off the calories to the music of a live band. This year we also initiated a 3 month project to publicise this meeting to Hackney's diverse communities by targeting those communities who do not often access many services. We have been delighted to welcome 5 new members from the Somali, Congolese and Turkish/Kurdish communities. Hackney Families Together was also involved in consulting on how they would like to see the new short breaks money spent in Hackney for 2009 & 2010.
Play Co-ordination
One of our valued staff members was asked to help co-ordinate summer playscheme provision for disabled children, in order to ensure that as many children as possible were able to access suitable playschemes over the summer. Overall over 200 children accessed specialist playschemes, with HFBU and play providers working together to ensure that families received a fair and equal share of what was available via the Learning Trust and independent playgrounds. The level of co-operation and co-ordination meant that some children enjoyed "shared" places or were able to make a choice on which project they wished to attend. However, a number of problems and frustrations were also identified, often associated with unconfirmed or last-minute funding, and the full report listed these, identified areas of unmet need and made recommendations for future consideration.Our Carers and Volunteers
HACKNEY FAMILY BACKUP's carers and volunteers triumphed at Hackney's Parent Awards 2008 ceremony in October. The grand affair was hosted by The Learning Trust in recognition of Hackney parents' contributions to the community. HFBU's Ayse Huseyin and her son Eftal Huseyin won Foster Parent of the Year awards AND Heather Dawes secured Volunteer of the year award. We are truly delighted that our carers and volunteers were honoured in this way.
October 2008 saw the launch of a new and exciting branch of HFBU - Disability Backup. Commissioned by Hackney Council we set up a forum for Disabled Adults in Hackney. By March 2009 the forum had held 6 meetings and had 132 disabled members and 96 interested others.
Disability Backup has been a great success holding meetings about a range of important issues, such as parking, housing and transport. We have a monthly newsletter which reaches members who are unable to attend the forum meetings. We share information, empower and consult local disabled people. We look forward to this work continuing and developing next year. Cllr Sally Mulready says "Disability Backup Forum is a demonstration of Hackney's commitment to involve and engage local disabled people in its decision making process. It is helping the Council to get better understanding of what disabled people expect of us and how we can develop and deliver our services to meet their needs."
In September we started working with the NHS City & Hackney to consult with disabled people about Health and Social Care Services. This work is going well and is continuing .
Disability Backup supported 132 disabled members this year.
Staff The staff team at 31 March 2009 was:
Sheila Ramdular: Chief Executive
Gillian Goodchild: Family Support Co-ordinator
Tess Pearson: Family Support Co-ordinator
Deborah Walsh: Office Manager
Elizabeth Narasimha: Interim Family Support Manager
Sandra Whyte: Family Support Social Worker
Catherine Love: Disability Backup Co-ordinator
Martina McLachlan: Administrative Worker
Vesna Glavas: Toy Library Worker
The Council of ManagementWe are lucky to have a strong, effective and hard working Council of Management. They exercise their role of governing the organisation appropriately and bring a good range of skills to the task.
The Council of Management during the year 2008/2009 was:
Ben Corrigan Chair
Christoph Hobo Treasurer
Phil Evans Co. Secretary and Vice Chair
Sue Windross
Stephen Cooper
Ann Marie Dawkins
Diane Heywood
June Martin
Looking forwardWe will be exploring ways of enabling us to provide our short break services more flexibly, responsively and to a greater number of families.
The Parenting Support Service continues to develop and we would like to provide more training for parents and play workers. We will be working to secure ongoing funding for our Family Support work including the much valued toy and resource library.
In 2008/9 we would like to develop our work supporting service user involvement via facilitating a Forum for disabled people. We are looking forward to developing our forum meetings and growing our membership. We will be working closer with different services at Hackney Council, for example the access team, electoral services and the parking service.
In 2008/9 Hackney Family Backup received funding from:
The London Borough of Hackney The Parenting Fund
City and Hackney Primary Care Trust
The Hale Trust
The Waterside Trust (Porticus Trust)
Help a London Child
David Solomon's Charitable Trust
Good Neighbours Trust
Mr & Mrs Pye's Charitable Trust
A private donor
Early Bird Store (sale of Christmas cards)
Department for Children Schools and the Family - Together for Disabled Children
HFBU never make direct appeals to the public for funding. If you receive an e-mail requesting
financial assistance that you think might be from us please contact us immediately.