What we do
Hackney Family Backup exists to provide community based support services to families who have children with a disability or a disabling medical condition.

Our mission is to improve the quality of life for disabled children aged 0-19 and their families, by promoting community support and social inclusion.

Our main activities

Short break care
Short break care services are provided by carers assessed and approved under the Fostering Services Regulations 2002. Carers are recruited from the diverse local communities in Hackney. Our professional staff assess, support and train carers and encourage their development 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 enriching experiences which support their development and inclusion in the local community.

During the year, flexible short break care services were provided to a total of 30 children and young people. Three new carers successfully completed the assessment process and were registered by our Fostering Panel.

This year, Hackney Family Backup had its second successful inspection by the Commission for Social Care Inspection. The inspector noted that 'Carers provide a safe, healthy and nurturing environment and services clearly value diversity and promote equal opportunity'.

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. Approved 'sitters' work from the family home but often work with families to enable the children to access play and other fun activities in the community. Our homesitting service is growing and provided support for seven families during the year. Three new carers were recruited for this service and successfully completed the assessment process.

To ensure they provide a high standard of care to children, and to monitor their development and training needs, carers and homesitters have an annual review, regular supervision and access to our extensive training programme.

Family Support
Our Family Support Service, operated in partnership with The Children's Fund, continues to develop. Volunteers work alongside families to provide practical support and enable them to access local resources. During this year 17 families received regular support while 20 more families received general support and advice.

Funding from Hackney Social Services Quality Protects has enabled us to expand and complement this project to reach families whose children are of ages not within the remit of the Children's Fund. During the year nine families received support through this service A further 7 families received advice and benefited from our toy library.

The Lila Project
The continued funding from The Big Lottery (formerly the New Opportunities Fund) enabled us to provide a play and family support service for children with life limiting and life threatening conditions. This work is carried out in partnership with similar short break care projects in two neighbouring boroughs. We supported 11 children through this project while a further four families received general support and access to the specialist toys in the toy library.

The Toy Library
The toy library was developed to improve the play opportunities available to children we support, and other local disabled children who find it difficult to access mainstream play resources. With a donation of £1,500 from Help a London Child we were able to buy some lovely new toys and to replace some which had been damaged or destroyed by enthusiastic use! We have also received some specialist play equipment via the Lila Project. The toy library is now well used and was run by Natasha Wilson, a parent volunteer, during the year.

Farewell to Alex
Sadly we had to say goodbye to Alex Hendra, our Director, who left in May 2004. Alex had been at HFBU for six years and is much missed by staff, families and carers. However, her leaving was the occasion for an excellent party at Hackney City Farm. Many of our families and volunteers came along to give Alex a good send off and to wish her well in her new job.

Sheila joins us
In January 2005 we welcomed Sheila Ramdular as the new Director of HFBU. Sheila comes to us with many years' experience of management in the voluntary sector. She is also the mother of a young person with additional needs and herself used a respite service similar to ours when her children were younger.

Other staff changes
Peter Firkin, a very experienced voluntary sector management consultant, acted as Interim Director from June until December.

We were lucky enough to have one of our former carers, Ishta Oku, working with us as a temporary social worker for six months.

Chris Addison was promoted from Senior Practitioner to the new post of Deputy Director in January 2005. Congratulations Chris!

Emma Hutton is now a full-time Volunteer Coordinator, having successfully completed her one-year trainee contract.

• Sheila Ramdular: Director
  

• Christine Addison: Deputy Director
  

• Gillian Goodchild: Homesitting and Volunteer coordinator
  

• Emma Hutton: Volunteer Coordinator
  

• Roma Desai: Family Placement Social Worker (Temporary)
  

• Mary Gallagher: Administrator (Temporary)
  

Not all hard work!
We all look forward to the HFBU parties and picnics, which give us a chance to socialise with the children and their families. These events are also great opportunities for parents, children and carers to meet informally, relax and have fun. Sadly our summer picnic had to be cancelled at the last minute as the weather let us down, but the half term party in October 2004 at Abney Hall in Stoke Newington was a great success. Lots of families, volunteers and carers showed up, many of them bringing huge amounts of delicious food with them!

We ended the year on a high note with another party, this time at the Huddleston Centre. The children made good use of the ball pool, soft play room and one of our volunteers led jamming sessions with the musical instruments! We took along loads of toys from the library to do some consumer testing and the children let us know in no uncertain terms which ones they liked. We set up a full sensory room, which many children enjoyed and some parents were inspired by seeing what can be done with the sensory toys and equipment we are able to lend from the library.

There is a serious side to our parties. We use them as opportunities to consult with parents who are using or waiting for a service on what they value about HFBU and what they would like improved. In this we are ably supported by individuals from the Council of Management, who like to use this opportunity to hear at first hand the views of parents.

The Council of Management
We are lucky enough 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.

During the year our long serving Chair, Graham Moore, resigned from the role. Ben Corrigan, also a long serving Council Member, replaced Graham as Chair. We were delighted to welcome Andria Nonin and Phil Evans as new members of the Council in June.

The Council of Management as at October 2005 is:

• Ben Corrigan Chair
  

• Christoph Hobo Treasurer
  

• Phil Evans Company Secretary
  

• Vicky Ndunagum
  

• Sue Windross
  

• Diane Hughes
  

• Ayse Huseyin
  

Looking forward
March 2005 saw us busily planning the production of a new short film, 'Like One of the Family'. This is a project in partnership with The Media Trust to celebrate 2005 as the Year of the Volunteer. Its aim is to show the work of our volunteers and the fun they have with the children and families they support.

It is planned that in 2005/6 work will begin on developing a new strategic plan which will enable us to build on past achievements and develop in ways which will allow us to respond to the needs of more families. Hackney Family Backup.s staff and Council of Management look forward to consolidating our existing work and developing new initiatives in the next year.

Click here to see financial information for year ending 31st March 2005.