CAFE HOLIDAY CLUB
A story by THE SATURDAY CAFE CLUBS SCIO
The Cafe Holiday Club provides short breaks for carers and fun activities for disabled children and young people, promoting social integration and healthy lives through a wide range of activities including free play, sport, dance and drama
What CAFE HOLIDAY CLUB did
Our Cafe Holiday Club 2022 provided 9 weeks of short-break opportunities for carers of children and young people with a range of complex additional support needs. Enabling carers to engage in activities of choice, confident their cared for child / young person is in a positive, safe, fun space where they are supported to create opportunities to integrate, play and learn in an environment of respect and promotion of positive behaviours. In 2022 our 9 weeks short breaks consisted of 2 weeks Spring, 6 weeks Summer and 1 week October. Over this period we provided 962 individual short break sessions (minimum of 3 hours maximum of 7 hours) supporting 63 individual carers to participate in activities of choice and providing fun for 77 individual children and young people (including 1 sibling support). We have delivered all our sessions face to face continuing to use our COVID protocols and delivering the majority of our sessions outdoors. We have been able to return to offering full day sessions extending the short-break for some of those carers most in need to 7 hours and providing the cared-for child with lunch time support.
To promote our theme of healthy fun we engaged professional sports coaches to deliver fun sports sessions and fun days involving carers (if they chose).
We were delighted at the arrival of our new summer house which sits beautifully in our Secret Garden - this was a big hit with the children and greatly admired by their carers.
What THE SATURDAY CAFE CLUBS SCIO has learned
We learn from every child and carer at every project. The lessons learned from COVID have continued to help us improve our service delivery. The main lesson from 2022 is how we have adapted our outdoor sessions to make the very best use of our growing and refurbished outdoor space.
How THE SATURDAY CAFE CLUBS SCIO has benefitted from the funding
Our reputation as a safe, fun Club for disabled children has continued to grow -demand across all our Clubs (general and CHC) means we have a current waiting list which remains in excess of 22 children/young people. Our carers and children are very grateful to the fund for the CHC service as there are very few services available across Glasgow and the surrounding LA's making it very difficult for carers to access short-breaks from their role as carer to a child / young person with disabilities. Without this fund this service would not be available - the impact of that would be significantly negative for carers and cared-for in our wider communities.
Project Outcome
70 children/young people with disabilities have improved access to participate in fun leisure and recreation activities of choice
Results
We exceeded our target of providing our service to 70 children/young people with disabilities - reaching 77 participants which included one sibling support. We were also able to support some full day sessions improving on our target of hours of access to participate in fun leisure and recreation activities
Case study
M is a young man (age 16 years) who has complex additional development and personal care needs. M loves the outdoors and has really benefitted from the newly refurbished outdoor secret garden and summer house activities. As M does not have an outdoor space at home where he can play freely his carer reported that his overall behaviour over the school breaks improved due to the additional hours he was allocated at CHC and the time he spent outdoors really benefitted his mental wellbeing.
Project Outcome
50 carers of children/young people with complex support needs have more time to access activities of choice free from their caring role
Results
We exceeded the target of providing our service to 50 carers of children/young people with complex support - reaching 63 direct carers which did not include secondary carers and siblings of the cared for child/young person who also benefit from the short break. This meant more carers had more short-break time to access activities of choice free from their caring role over the 9 week school breaks
Case study
Over the 9 week school breaks (2022) we supported 6 new carers to have short breaks from their caring role. New carer K (father) stated that he was delighted that he had a place at the CHC for his son N. N has a complex condition and requires 1-1 care and support. It took some time and patience to help N settle into the sessions, but after short-break of 2 hours we were able to increase his time at CHC. Over the 9 weeks CHC we had enabled K (father) to have a 5 hour break 2 days per week.
Project Outcome
50 carers of children/young people with complex support needs have increased opportunity to engage in (supported or self-directed) activities with other carers / professionals to discuss challenges and good news stories that improves support networks and their personal wellbeing
Results
We exceeded our target number of carers from 50 to 63 over the 9 week CHC 2022. Although many of the COVID restrictions had been lifted due to the health needs of many of the children/young people we work with we maintained restricted access. To this end we continued to support carers to access activities outwith the CHC with or without their cared-for child as we had been awarded ITISON family support via free vouchers for exciting days out. We also made contact again with the local senior social worker and a representative from Shared Care Scotland which allowed us to circulate information in regard to funding via social care and Respitality Scotland as well as being the hub for other local groups to circulate information pertinent to our Carers and those they care for.
Case study
M's primary carer N (mum) was very apprehensive about M spending long periods (up to 5 hours) at CHC. To support her we worked closely to develop an individual plan which was tailored to mum and M's needs. M does not sleep well so we supported a later start, lunch provision and an earlier finish meaning mum could arrange her day in advance. M and mum also selected 2 of our experience days provided by ITISON and with some additional financial support from our organisation was able to be accompanied by a second carer relieving mum from coping on her own meaning she had 2 great days out which she reported back saying it was a lovely experience for both herself and her son (and friend who supported her on both trips).
Project Outcome
70 children/young people with complex support needs and their carers will have increased wellbeing and reduced stress through improved access to physical health and wellbeing (information and support) to participate in activities of choice
Results
We are delighted to report that we exceeded both the targets set for children/young people and carers supported through the project. We were able to provide support to 77 children/young people and 63 carers to have increased wellbeing and reduced stress through improved access to physical health and wellbeing (information and support) to participate in activities of choice.
Case study
The CHC were chosen to be the beneficiary of free vouchers for ITISON experience days which we were able to distribute to our carers providing carers with the opportunity to participate in activities with or without their cared-for child. P's carer (gran) reported that the opportunity to participate in her ITISON (afternoon tea for 2) outing whilst P attended CHC gave her time to relax and reenergise.
Funded Organisation
THE SATURDAY CAFE CLUBS SCIOVisit THE SATURDAY CAFE CLUBS SCIO's website