Summary
We provided wide ranging, fun, challenging outdoor activities for young people with multiple support needs. Previously we have supported teenagers for 5 weeks during school holidays. After feedback from parents and teenagers, we opted to increase to 10 weeks, covering all school holidays,
What Big Kids Club did
Cornerstone Big Kids Club provided carers of young people with disabilities with regular short breaks during the school holidays, providing quality respite periods for a full day where young people were engaged and supported in challenging fun activities. These included wide ranging outdoor activities such as canoeing, abseiling, coasteering, bushcraft, as well as activities such as cinema trips and shopping and lunch out. Activities were chosen and planned by the young people and families with staff support and took place across Moray
Young people taking part already attend our After School Clubs or self refer by families or by Social` Workers. We ensure everyone is allocated several days each week and have never had to turn anyone away.
•The club operated throughout the school holidays.
The project supported 28 young people and 53 carers.
•The club was based in a local authority building, already used to operate existing play schemes for younger children.
•Carers received regular short breaks to take part in activities of their choice, spent time with other family members and have a life out with their caring role.
•The project was managed by a Service Manager and Team Leader in . The team was made up consistantly of 4 Support Workers to ensure continuity
The preplanning done with the children, the communication with other professionals supporting us and families and appropriate resources ensured that the Club ran smoothly.
We addressed 4 Better Breaks priorities across the project supporting disabled children with multiple support needs, allowing them to take part in sport and leisure activities helping with self-confidence, physical and emotional health as well as promoting independence and social life outside the home and supported transition stages.
The Outdoor activities proved particularly successful and the young peoples involvement in the planning and organising also provided opportunities for developing life skills.
Originally we had hoped to include some residential experiences, but as the funding was not the full amount we requested, we offered longer days across a wider area.
What Cornerstone has learned
Project planning and budgeting: The difficulty we have is that the funding allocation comes in literally at the start of Playscheme and because of the time factor and the need to let our young people and their carers know in advance what we are going to be doing, we may sometimes have to tweak what we are going to do, or possible may have to think about the cost to carers.
Reaching out and engaging with new families: We are the only service in this area doing what we do with children who have a physical difficulty or learning difficulty. Whilst we have an established relationship with Social Services, and people hear through word of mouth from our current families, we need to proactive in reaching more. We are looking at promoting the service at local events and fundraisers with our staff team, but also the young people we support.
Finding other sources of funding: we are aware that we need to try and source other fundraising opportunities, as well as holding events ourselves. Cornerstone as an organisation have a dedicated fundraising branch who will actively follow up new avenues.
How Cornerstone has benefitted from the funding
The Better Breaks funding has allowed us to continue with this much needed and valued service and extend the length of the day to give our young people time to go further afield for new and more challenging activities, but equally give carers extended respite to enjoy and relax, either with other family members or by themselves.
The types of exciting outdoor activities we can access as a group is definitely offering new challenges and risk benefit, and this is strengthening our service reputation as to the quality of care being offered and the opportunity for a positive experience for our young people at a time when, if not for us, they would be socially isolated in the school holidays.
Project Outcomes
Outcome
teens will have had opportunities to participate in exciting and challenging outdoor activities.
Results
Through careful preplanning with the young people and families ,organising and budgeting we were able to provide a wide range of challenging, fun and risk beneficial anctivities mostly outdoors with some of the usual Teen choice activities such as cinema, swimming and bowling. We worked closely with an outdoor activity specialist, Outdoor Moray, to set up climbing, canoeing, coasteering, archery and bushcraft, which may not usually be accessible to the young people. The young people were given the opportunity to enhance physical, emotional and social skills alongside their peers and staff. Confidence was boosted with the sense of achievement of completing such challenges.
Case study
One young man, LB, has always attended our usual afterschool clubs and some playscheme activities such as the cinema and bowling, but has been very reluctant to participate in the more physical outdoor activities. He is not as confident in theses areas and can be aware of how he perceives people see him. With encouragement from staff, families and his friends at club, he agreed to join in with the climbing at a local beach cliff face. Having the outdoor specialists alongside L, it was fantastic to see him, once he had overcome his nerves, scale to quite a height with everyone below cheering him on. You could visibly see his pride and self-esteem as he stood at the bottom when he had finished and was taking the compliments from everyone. The feedback on L`s survey , when asked about the benefits to L, his family said "it has built up his confidence and self-esteem and pushed him to activities which he would not normally do"
Outcome
The families and young people we support will have improved well being as a result of the respite provided to their teens by the Big Kids Club.
Results
The feedback from families after the Playscheme has had very positive responses from families. They have stated:
"It gives our family time to do other things by ourselves'
"We have 3 children including E. When E goes to playscheme we can go and do activities which may be unsuitable for E. It gives us a break and E has the best time"
"We can leave our son in a safe environment where we do not have to worry. It provides much needed respite for our family and we are extremely grateful"
"The holidays can be very stressful and hard sometimes and it is great my son and myself can have our own time"
"I can take other family members out fro some quality time, while I know A is happy or I can simply catch up with essential chores at home without trying to watch A at the same time"
Case study
We do not have a specific example of individual children / families for this as the response we get from all families using the service is consistent in their comments about having quality time with siblings, about having time to themselves, about being able to catch up on day to day activities and about seeing effective change in childrens confidence , self esteem and well being in a positive environment where they trust the staff to fully support their young person.
New families that come to us say that they have struggled to find anything locally which supports the young people in the holidays, which for some of our youngsters can be really isolating in the holidays as they lose touch with their peers and families do not have the time, for a variety of reasons to focus on activities appropriate for their child. This can be because of having to work, or as they may have other siblings at home.
Outcome
Parents and carers will report increased opportunities to enjoy life outside of their caring role.
Results
This is evidenced in our surveys and verbal feedback as noted in outcome 2
Case study
As in outcome 2
Outcome
Parents will feel more resilient and better supported to sustain their caring roles.
Results
as outcome 2
Case study
as outcome 2
Outcome
Teens and their parents/carers have an increased awareness of local mainstream leisure activities and resources
Results
We introduce a very wide programme of different activities and parents/carers get a full written detailed plan of what we will be doing, where and with whom. We are able to signpost services to them which can support them such as Quarriers, a local support service for young carers, which may be useful for siblings, and activities such as Seagull Cruises which give free trips up the Caledonian Canal for disabled children and families entirely free.
Case study
As yet, as far as we know, none of our families have sourced any of the specialised activities we have signposted or had information on. This can be due to a variety of reasons including cost, such as with outfit Moray, having other family members who may not want to take part in, or time factors. However we have been able to support with activities such as the cinema, by giving information on the CEA cards which give free entry to carers.