By Dan Barron and Sam Dixon, The Heat of the Community Project
Heart of the Community Project workers supported Jo and the SEND youth group apply to Voluntary Action Rotherham’s Mental Health Fund at the end of 2022. This fund was to finance new activity to produce activity that supports Adult Mental Health and wellbeing within Rotherham.
Jo, who could now be considered a veteran at supporting SEND families given her community project history, designed this project to be a space for parents and carers to be able to get together and share their experiences of living with a young person with additional needs. The group wanted to deliver a weekly coffee morning for parents and carers to support each other and talk about their experiences to break the stigmas attached to parents/ carers and the pressures that come with having a SEN family.
“I know I’m talking to others who understand what I’m going through and will listen to me, and I feel listened to.”
Raising a young person with additional needs is a journey that most parents never imagine that they will have to go through. It is a journey filled with constant learning and a whole multitude of emotions including denial, anxiety, sleep deprivation, depression, loneliness, and isolation. It magnifies the importance of community groups like Jo’s Peer Support that provide a small respite for parents and carers that they would not otherwise have. Sessions bring them together so that they can vent from turbulent emotions, have access to likeminded peer support such as sharing individuals’ journeys and activities to bring participants together.
“People don’t try to fix my situation with suggestions because they know there are no fixes.”
The group is run by volunteers who are parents and carers of children with disabilities/additional needs, so everyone has lived experience when navigating through the process of diagnosis and life with a child with additional needs. Parents in these situations very often feel isolated, this could be the result of others not understanding the pressures being faced, or even the individual isolating themselves because they are struggling to process the situation, they now find themselves in.
“People don’t always get what I’m talking about…… Other parents in the playground they listen, but they don’t get it.”
The sessions have made huge leaps in creating a peer support network that is helping members resilience and have a place to go to where their “constant battles are being understood.” They have recently employed the services of Jane from Luna Spirit who offer Holistic Therapies to attendees and is paid for by the funding. The addition of Holistic Therapy has been a real hit with everyone giving everyone a small pamper for themselves or just some well-deserved “me time.” The group is slowly growing its membership and people are gaining proper friendships from being involved with the group. Long may it continue.
“In this group, I know that I’m talking to other parents that have real experience of the things I worry about for my child’s, and my family’s future.”
“We get a cuppa and biscuits, and we don’t have to jump through hoops for it. Hahaha”
“The people here are a real fountain of Knowledge.”
