Short Break Stories

Home and Away

A story by Sense Scotland

To date we have delivered respite services to 2 young people and 3 carers, a 5 week arts club and an 8 week photography club.

Young people have gone out for dinner, gone to the pantomime, visited local fetes, had walks along the beach, massage/girly pampering sessions, visited local parks, taken lots of photographs, made lots of art works and held an exhibition.

We aim to offer children and young people up to 20 years of age who have complex communicatio support needs and mulitiple disabilities to have a short residential or non-residential break of their choice and to offer support to families to arrange their own short breaks.
Tip 1:
Be prepared for the additional work load this places on existing staff.
Tip 2:
Give lots of time to ensuring that children, young people and carers are fully involved in planning and choosing activities.
Tip 3:
Give time to identify those most in need of a break
One of the children participating in arts activities is under 5 years of age. Better breaks has given him his first opportunity to participate in arts activities and he just loves music and painting. He has complex needs and has spent much of his life in hospital. Arts sessions have particularly focused on movement, touch and vocalisation accessing a range of instruments, arts materials and techniques.

The photography club which ran over 8 weeks particularly inspired one young lady who talked constantly to her family about photographs she was taking and shoots in the local park. She was especially thrilled to see her photographs exhibited. We now know that this young lady is getting a camera for Christmas and that she has the confidence and the skills to take up her new hobby.
"I don't know how I would have coped without this, " one carer told the arts activities team. With the young person she cares for happily and safely participating in arts activities, she was able to have a quite cup of tea, read a book, have a chat with other carers or a walk round the shops. "Just having this time to relax makes such a difference."

While one young man was having an overnight stay at our respite house in Glasgow, his parents were able to attend a family wedding. Like a number of carers participating in Better Breaks, these parents were able to relax into "normal" family events knowing the the young person they care for was also having fun in a safe and caring environment.
All Better Breaks activities have been developed and delivered following consultation with carers and young people about what they want to do and with a sound knowledge of families circumstances through either contact with our family advisors or other staff teams.
Placing children, young people and their carers at the centre of planning activities has been an opportunity for young people to exercise real choice in how they used their short break and for those carers not yet involved in the personalisation process, to think about their own needs as well as those of their disabled child.

For carers so accustomed to always thinking about the needs of their child and completely disregardng their own this has not been an easy experience. Hopefully, once personalisation is fully in place, young people will be able to draw on the activities and experiences they enjoyed to make choices about their futures and carers will be able to think about what their needs are and how at least some of them may be met.
All short breaks and respite were additional to statutory services being received by participants.
Activities focused on enabling children and young people to have new experiences, trying out new things, meeting new people and focusing on particular areas of development e.g. communication, social interaction and building confidence and self esteem.
The unexpected challenge was the slow take up of opportunities for traditional respite. We found that our day activities especially those arranged for weekends were much more popular, while, looking forward to activities still to be delivered, the young people's weekends away is by far the most anticipated and popular of all our short breaks.
Our focus was children and young people who have complex communication support needs and mulitiple disabilities. Many of the families who will have participated by the end of the project are already known to us and were referred by family advisors and staff teams who were very aware of those families most in need of a break and closest to crisis. Those families with whom we had no prior contact came to us via our Family Advisory Service and other organisations.
As an organisation all the children and young people we work with have mulitple support needs due to deafblindness, sensory impairment, learning and physical disabiities. Many have what are termed high need low incidence conditions, many have no formal language skills and most will have been born with or acquired disability at a very early age often before language develops.

Our young people have a high incidence of epilepsy and behaviour that may be deemed challenging. Having said all that they are also brave, funny, charming, curious and talented.
We are using a number of differencet approaches to evaluation: Our established evaluation process which includes close observation, use of video and photography and direct feedback from children and young people using a variety of communication techniques. Feedback from carers is a combination of direct verbal feedback and a questionnnair which we will forward to carers closer to the end of the project

"As a family we were at breaking point...this break brought us all closer together and enabled us to have fun as a family and enjoy different surroundings. I can't thank you enough...for making this happen for us."

Service User

Short Break Stories is a site by Shared Care Scotland, a company limited by guarantee registered in Scotland SC161033.

Designed and developed by Do Good. This site uses a few cookies more on this.   Admin login