Short Break Stories

Barnardo's Family Support Team

A story by Barnardo's Family Support Team

Both weekends took place at the Nethybridge Outdoor Centre, near Aviemore – part of the Abernethy Trust, providing a range of fun, rewarding outdoor activities, with support for children/young people and all of the family. In my experience children with learning disabilities and associated complex needs, eg epilepsy, do not normally have the opportunity to experience such a wide range of challenging and rewarding experiences – canoeing, climbing, archery, etc in our risk adverse society. Like most children if given the chance they will achieve and prosper. This has very much been our experience over 25 years.

We are a family support project for children/young people with significant learning disabilities in Dundee. We have promoted and run short break residential activity weekends since 1986 and in recent years been supported by the Short Breaks/Better Breaks Fund.

Since May 2013 we have run 2 short breaks of 4 days, 3 nights providing fun activities for young people and a positive family experience. Holiday 1 provided places for 9 young people (with support) and holiday 2, a family weekend for the whole family - 6 families took part. A third residential weekend is planned for March 2014.
Tip 1:
Ensure that you have sufficient staff/volunteers available to meet the needs of children and young people who will take part. This may include the need for waking carers. Safety is paramount.

Tip 2:
Ensure that the centre you visit has the correct ethos and that facilities are of a high standard, which includes qualified instructors and safety equipment.
Tip 3:
Be prepared for the unexpected – keep calm and carry on!
All of the 21 children/young people who took part in the two weekend activity breaks greatly benefitted for taking part. From this total, 19 were children/young people with a wide range of disabilities and associated complex health needs such as epilepsy, 3 were sibling /young carers. Feedback from all participants was universally positive and quotes included:

• From young people – “I learned how to be brave.” “I loved the zip wire, canoeing, archery and football.”
• From parents – “M improved his social and independent living skills and also his confidence. Now that he is getting older experiences like these are invaluable to his development.” “He did very well in leaving me for that few days.” (For this 15 year old young man, this was his first experience of being away from home.)

Case Study

Holiday One – D (15) is a young man with global developmental delay who lives at home with his single parent mum and older brothers in a disadvantaged part of the city. He has never been away from home before and after some initial reassurance surprises his family by saying he will give the holiday a go. While he copes well with the separation helped by the fact that his girlfriend is also taking part and enjoys the weekend, he is very clear that he is not keen to go again – he has tried it! However given this positive experience both he and his mum are now willing to consider planned short breaks at the local residential short break unit. His mum feels this will help his maturity and independence. D feels keen to spend time at the unit- his girlfriend also attends!
The X family have 4 children, 3 of whom have learning disabilities. They are a family who make very few demands upon services but the feedback they have provided is telling. Following their participation in our Family Weekend:

“All of our children loved Nethybridge and the outdoor activities. It’s hard to do these kind of things with 4 kids, all of whom who have different needs and they will be speaking about the great time they had. Nethybridge is great and the staff there are very understanding. Our children have gained new skills and learned that they can do more than they had thought, gained new friends and an understanding of other special needs kids.”

“Me and all our family can’t thank Better Breaks enough. We had a great time together and of course the helpers at Barnardo’s have hearts of gold. My twins want to take their 16th birthday there instead of having a party. So that tells you how much fun they had.”

Case Study

Holiday Two – B is a 15 year old young person who has significant learning disabilities and complex epilepsy, which is the result of a non accidental head injury. His behaviour can at times be very challenging. He was received into the care of the local authority over 12 months ago as he was out with the control of his single parent mum, who loves him dearly. It is recognized by all involved in his care the importance of this attachment and relationship for both mother and son. With support, both mum and son spend a highly enjoyable weekend together providing a positive experience and unforgettable memories.
Again from our Family Weekend we received some very positive and humbling feed back:

“The short break weekend gives families a massive boost and reduces anxiety. The benefits are increased self confidence in a relaxed environment. A real sense of fun and increased well being and a chance to meet other families. We are all happier together. Such breaks put life in perspective and are vital for family cohesion and morale. Extra support needs within the family is relentlessly challenging. The breaks are a lifeline to children with few friends. Well planned short breaks provide support to both the family and the child. The families involved are not typical. This is not the same as a mainstream holiday that anyone can book.”

Case Study

Holiday Two – A is 9 years old and lives with his single parent dad who is a student and suffers from a history of poor mental health. He feels very isolated and has few supports or friends. A himself has a range of complex disabilities and at times, hard to manage behaviours. Some weeks prior to the short break weekend dad attempts suicide, but those involved in his care assess this as a cry for help. He takes part in the weekend, but leaves mid way feeling poorly. A stays and is supported by his future short break carer who co runs the weekend. Dad feels confident in the short break carer’s abilities and as a consequence of the weekend, planned short breaks are now in place. Dad’s physical and mental health is improving steadily.
As a long standing family support service we know from experience the value of these kinds of short breaks for children/young people and their families. We carry out bi-annual surveys with up to 30 project families (around ¼ of the families we support) and receive consistently positive feed back in respect of our short breaks. Prior to our 2012/13 application to Better Breaks we carried out a short break survey with our project users and our subsequent application to Better Breaks was grounded in sound evidence that there is a demand for these types of breaks. The demand and uptake from our two weekends thus far underlines their popularity.
All of our young people and their families who participate are actively encouraged to try the wide range of activities available and the programme for the weekends are built around their wishes and choices. For many children/young people this is their first experience of taking part in outdoor activities. Children are encouraged to take part, but for those who do not wish to, their views are respected. What we have found by experience is that children and indeed adults will try if they see others succeeding. We also know that families will also return to Nethybridge on their own, such was the value of their experience with us.
The funding we receive from Dundee City Council is for our main service, with additional funding coming from the Big Lottery for our Growing Up service, click on www.barnardos.org.uk/familysupportdundee for further information .
Since 1986 when we ran our first residential short break, the funding we have received from a variety of sources, has been in addition to our local authority funding and obtained through the goodwill of local people and organizations, national and local trusts, our local Barnardo’s Helpers Group and most recently Short Breaks/Better Breaks.
For able bodied children taking part in activity short breaks with peers, such as residential weekends, is seen as a right of passage, normally occurring in P6 or P7. For disabled children/young people different rules seem to apply. Without the experiences we have provided both this year and in past years, such opportunities would be denied our children.

While this represents real inequality and is at heart an issue of fundamental rights, we know from long experience that such breaks are life changing and the rewards for our children are hard to quantify. What value do you put on an experience when a child says, “I learned to be brave”?
I think that apart from children’s confidence and self esteem improving, for families making friends has been important, having a normal family experience has been really significant and perhaps seeing children in a new light – as achievers, has been rewarding.

In terms of challenges, ensuring that all participants have a positive experience and are safe but also experience managed risk, are key considerations.
We are a limited service providing support to over 120 local families of disabled children. The demand within our own service for these types of short breaks is sufficient to ensure that families access support when they need it and request it. In addition our three family workers are regularly in contact with families and well able to gauge ongoing need.

We are unable to offer the service to children unknown to our service or with less severe forms of disability, given our funding agreement and Service Level Agreement with Dundee City Council, our funding partners.
All of the children and young people we support have significant learning disabilities, including for many Autism. In addition we support children with Downs, Prader Willi, Fragile X, ADHD, ADD etc.
For many children their needs are complex which often includes medical needs such as complex epilepsy.
I would simply like to thank Shared Care, Scotland and the Scottish Government for making these short breaks possible and for their help in recent years. Many, many children and families have had unforgettable experiences which will last a life time.
We have a range of evaluation methods, as follows:

 Simple questionnaires for the children and young people who take part.
 Questionnaires for staff, volunteers and parents.
 Evaluation reports which are produced for each holiday, which includes outcomes.
 Bi-annual User Satisfaction survey, which includes questions which relate to our residential short breaks.
 Prior to application to Short Breaks/Better Breaks a detailed user survey seeking views on what type of short breaks parents value and want.