Providing Community Support and Social Inclusion for Disabled Children and Young People
Previous reports: 2006/7 | 2005/6 | 2004/5
What we do
Hackney Family Backup provides community based support services to families who have children with a disability or a disabling medical condition.
Our main activities
Short break care
We provide short break care 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 27 children and young people.
This year, Hackney Family Backup had its first inspection by Ofsted, who have taken over the regulation of fostering services from the Commission for Social Care Inspection. The Inspection went well and the report noted a good range of services and support provided by HFBU. We were particularly pleased that feedback to the inspector by parents and carers was wholly positive and complimentary.
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 usually work with families to enable the children to access play and other fun activities in the community. Our homesitting service provided support for seven children during the year.
Family SupportOur Family Support Service, operated in partnership with Hackney Children's Fund and 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 increased funding from the Parenting Fund and several charitable trusts we have extended the support 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. The project began in September 2006 and by March 2008 forty three parents and fifty three children had benefited from this service. Comments from parents make it clear why this service is so highly valued: 'It's different from other groups. There's trust and togetherness. I feel at ease here, there's a bond and we always take away something. I've learnt things here that I can put into practice.'
The increased funding from the Parenting Fund meant that we were able to respond to parents' requests for training. We offered training in assertiveness, confidence building, relaxation techniques as well as strategies for managing their children's behaviour more effectively. The training was very well received feedback including 'Training was the best I've ever had. Better than Early Bird Plus. It took everything to another level.'
The Parenting Fund also gave us money to support an outing to Thomley Hall, a specialist activity centre in Buckinghamshire. In October forty five parents and children enjoyed a fun packed day out despite the wintry weather.
The toy library helps to increase play opportunities available to local disabled youngsters who find it difficult to access mainstream play. During the year we raised funds to consult children on what toys they would like to see added to the library. The consultation took place at our February party. Over 150 people packed into the venue to enjoy food, games, face painting and Potty Patrick, our favourite clown.
We collected the children's feedback using video, photos and observation to ensure that everyone's views were taken into account no matter what method of communication they use. Then based on their feedback we were able to buy some exciting new toys.
During the year we were able for the first time to employ a Worker to develop the library, taking toys out to families who find it hard to access it and supporting parents with ideas for developing play with their disabled children. This post is only funded for one year and we will be trying to raise more secure funding next year.
Over 150 children benefited from the toy library last year.
A parent, April 2008
"I like that Backup is always there for you... for whatever you need."
Parent, 2007
A new friendThis year we invited Allan Ahlberg the famous children's author to join us at our Annual General Meeting. He agreed and treated children and adults to a very entertaining talk and story. This went beyond interactive with Allan commenting that he had never been offered a packet of crisps in the middle of a talk before! It was clear that Allan liked the children as much as they liked him and we hope he will be a regular visitor to our events.
Family Club Parent, 2008
Getting togetherThis year our August picnic was rained off but we had a fall back plan and moved to a nearby hall. Parents and carers brought food to share and we had a great time without a care about the rain falling hard outside.
Hackney Families Together
Along with staff from the Primary Care Trust, Hackney Children's Services, the Learning Trust, Parent Partnership, the Key and the City and Hackney Carers Centre we 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 mid winter party held at the Energie Gym in December. As well as trying out the gym equipment parents replaced the calories with a slap up lunch, had some fun with an African dance session and were pampered with a range of therapies and manicures.
Hackney Families Together will be involved in planning the new Hackney Ark, a disabled children's centre due to open in Spring 2008.
Staff
The staff team at 31 March 2008 was:
Sheila Ramdular: Director
Christine Addison: Deputy Director
Gillian Goodchild: Homesitting and Volunteer Coordinator
Deborah Walsh: Office Manager
Elizabeth Narasimha: Family Placement Social Worker
Catherine Love: Family Support Coordinator
Tess Pearson: Toy Library Worker
Martina McLachlan: Administrative Worker
The Council of Management
We 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 2007/2008 was:
Ben Corrigan - Chair
Christoph Hobo - Treasurer
Phil Evans - Company Secretary & Vice Chair
Stephen Cooper
Ann Marie Dawkins
Diane Heywood
June Martin
Vicky Ndunagum
Sue Windross
Looking forward
We want to find new ways of recruiting and registering carers to ensure that we can offer short breaks to all the families who are referred to us.
We will be working to secure ongoing funding for our Family Support work including the much valued toy and resource library.
We recognise that while we go to considerable lengths to consult and involve disabled children and their parents, opportunities for disabled adults to influence local service planning and delivery are very limited. We would thus like to begin to be involved in supporting disabled people to voice their needs and thus to develop accessibility and disability equality in Hackney. We are applying to work with the Borough of Hackney on this agenda.
In 2007/8 Hackney Family Backup received funding from:
The London Borough of Hackney
Hackney Children's Fund
The Parenting Fund
City and Hackney Primary Care Trust
The Three Guineas Trust
The Tallow Chandlers Benevolent Fund
The Grange Farm Charitable Trust
Hackney Parochial Charities
The Souter Charitable Trust
COFRA London
HCVS Local Network Fund
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.