Holiday Clubs for Glasgow Children

What Holiday Clubs for Glasgow Children did

Our organisation runs a number of services for families affected by disability. Our school holiday project caters for the diverse/individual requirements of a range of children most of whom have complex needs. Children are individually assessed so we can produce a plan that meets their needs. As well as the important element of play/leisure, we promote health/wellbeing through all the activities and encourage independence/self-help skills.

Demand for Glasgow places is very high and we try to offer as many young people as possible these funded places. There is a long waitlist and families with no support except school are first to be offered places. After assessment and meeting the staff, children are then introduced. Staff training is vital and is ongoing within Buddies.

The pandemic forced us to change our provision. We were unable to run our Easter Holiday Club as this was scheduled the week after the first lockdown began. Following government guidance and advice, we were able to run our Summer/October Holiday Clubs. We moved the whole programme to our premises. We repurposed our nursery for the children’s holiday club, promoted physical distancing, and maximised the use of our outdoor spaces/local parks and our minibus was able to take small groups out locally. We also capped the number of children and shortened the contact hours to promote stricter cleaning. The Summer Club was our first “full” service post lockdown and it was very successful. In liaison with Shared Care Scotland, the Summer Club gained media attention. We received very emotional feedback. One family said that it “saved their lives”.

Our project allows some parents to work and spend time with their other children. Many of the children who we support are unable to comprehend why their lives were turned upside down. Many are isolated and withdrawn at the best of times. Anxiety was/is at an all-time high.

The objective when planning any project is to preplan/research and anticipate the needs of all. Whilst unexpected challenges arise, we are always prepared to adapt all plans. Through reflective sessions, evaluations and parent/child feedback the holiday clubs are successful.

What Buddies Clubs and Services has learned

As with previous years the little support there is available to families with children affected by disability particularly within Glasgow continues to dwindle. This is particularly worrisome due to COVID-19 and its effects. Despite the lockdown and the public health emergency, we continued to receive requests for places for our service. Obviously, our families had absolutely nothing and were completely isolated at home between April and July 2020. One of the most common pieces of feedback we always receive is that parents, whilst they are grateful to receive two sessions per week for their child they really do need more than that. This is still important to bear in mind but our families were exceptionally received to hear that we were going to run our Summer Club.

The holiday club always brings new families to us and after the holidays, they all want to try to find funding for our other services. We work in partnership with a range of agencies. Local Carers’ Centres refer a great number of children who have no support at all, and whilst social work rarely fund children, we get many referrals for all age groups. Even although they have no funding, they do not hesitate to send families at risk and with high needs in the hope that we can help. We do our best but we are always oversubscribed. Many families now self-refer as very few have ongoing social work input. The special schools in Glasgow also send families to us. Some special schools used to run short ‘holiday club respite’ but these have all stopped.

We aim to offer funded places to families who appear to be ‘at risk’ for a range of reasons. The main one being families who have no support except school and for them the long holidays is a very difficult time with some ending up with family breakdown. We also always have a few emergency situations where a parent is ill and a family needs urgent support.

Holiday periods always seem quite daunting and helpless, as most young people would be stuck at home and indoors due their complex needs. Parents/carers in some cases would have to give up employment to care for the children. All of these things have a marked effect on siblings as they can also suffer as they sometimes end up being carers for their brother(s) or sister(s) and even parents and miss having time with their own friends and having their own lives. We do try to accommodate some siblings as they are able to be in-group situations and really enjoy being on trips and outings.

We have also learned that no matter how many children and young people we are able to accommodate, there is never truly enough support. The volume of applications we receive from current users alone means we have ration out places to families. The picture really is that if we could we would have 60 children and young people per day every day during the school holidays. There are always challenges that arise the main one of course is finding funding for staff. Whilst our staff do a wonderful job in caring for our young people we never seem to have enough staff during holiday periods to meet the high levels of need. Due to the complex needs most young people the staff ratio is mainly 1-1 and that needs lots of funding.

We have been extremely fortunate to have been funded by the Better Breaks programme for many years but finding funding for children particularly in Glasgow is extremely difficult. This was more important than ever in 2020. The Better Breaks Fund helped 20 families have a chance to have a bit of “normality” and have fun with their friends. Even though children previously funded have since grown into young adulthood and some have even been lucky enough to have been allocated budgets – it is a simple fact that there will always be children who need support and this will not change. Children get almost no support from the statutory sector except in very extreme cases and this shows no signs of changing either.

This is particularly worrying for the very near future. The Integrated Grant Fund has closed and although we were unsuccessful in our application to the new Glasgow Communities Fund, we received a reduced grant from the new Transitional Support Fund thanks to a wonderful campaign led by our families. Social care budgets are continually getting stricter too. Our passion is to help all children and families who contact us and the only we way can do that is to find the money to run the services they so desperately need.

How Buddies Clubs and Services has benefitted from the funding

Our organisation has been extremely fortunate to have received funding from the Better Breaks Fund for many years. It has helped us bring a service to children and families who would otherwise get no support whatsoever. Our holiday clubs have run since 1995 and we learn something new each and every time. Without the funding in recent years, we would not have gained the skills, expertise and knowledge to level to the same extent that we have now. Furthermore, without this funding there would be a massive hole in the service provision in this city children would be stuck at home languishing without any meaningful outlet to express themselves socially and parents/carers regularly have to give up work to carry out their caring duties. By receiving the funding we have brought 40-50 different children over the years into our family here, we have been able to bridge a huge gap that is extraordinarily difficult to fill. However, most importantly, we have continued to build and develop the skills and capacity to effectively make a difference to the lives of our children and their families. Through Shared Care Scotland, we took part in a Senior Managers’ Network where we have had the chance to meet other organisations throughout Scotland. We have been able to make partnerships and links with these organisations who provide services to carers/cared for children and adults and have the opportunity to support each other and share good practice. While we still have massive difficulty in finding on floor staff thanks to the funding we have received from the Better Breaks programme and C.I.N our reputation has grown as an excellent service provider. This is backed up by our Care Inspectorate report and we have managed to find funding for our senior staff team. This team is the key to a strong and enthusiastic organisation. The Scottish Government has funded an attainment post for the nursey, which also helps other services. The Gannochy trust has also provided part funding for 3 years for our senior support worker. All of this continues to improve the overall development of the organisation. We hope to be able to continue to build on our growing strengths. The blow we received by being turned down by the Glasgow Communities Fund was quite severe. It damages our reputation and shows the attitude shown by the local authority towards people with disabilities. Despite this, we are very hopeful for the future and will continue to fight to provide a first-class service to our families and help them thrive in their lives. We were given a much-needed boost in March 2020, three days before the first lockdown, that we were successful in gaining occupancy of new premises, which will enable us to expand and grow. We are very excited by the opportunities that having this new centre will provide for us.