New Year and New Plans
Welcome to April 2017's newsletter. Thank you to our guest editor for last month Andy Hodkin stepping in to update you all on what has been happening at Crocus Fields.
The start of April sees us roll out a new service plan and proving outcomes plan for the year ahead. Our priorities for the year ahead are as follows:
To improve parental integration and feedback throughout the service and within the community.
To better analyse progression of young people throughout each stay.
To further improve the building, resources and service.
To improve the staff and families understanding of sensory needs.
To develop societies understanding about promoting positive mental health and wellbeing.
To offer the sensory pod to other services/schools/community groups through a booking system.
To focus on the promotion of health in all aspects of a person’s life.
We will endeavour to keep you updated on service developments throughout the next year via the newsletter. If you have any other suggestions on how we can continue to grow as a service or support you better please do not hesitate to get in touch.
The John Imms Sensory Pod
After a year of fund raising, I am delighted to tell you all that we have reached the dizzy sum of £70,000 to purchase our sensory pod from Osbourne Technologies. "Wooden Spoon", the Children's Charity of Rugby awarded us an extremely generous £18,000 bringing us up to our target amount.
This is a huge achievement from everyone at Crocus Fields. We would like to thank everyone who helped raise funds, whether this be through half marathons, triathlons, car washing, obstacle courses, cycling, swimming and even bungee jumping! We would like to extend a large thanks to Marie Halford for securing a large sum from the short breaks capital fund and finally to Wooden Spoon.
Wooden Spoon do some amazing work nationally awarding money to a huge range of projects and initiatives. From sensory rooms, specialist playgrounds and sports activity areas to respite, medical and community care. They fund around 70 projects each year that support disadvantaged and disabled children. They have distributed in excess of £24 million since their founding in 1983 helping over 1 million young people. Wooden Spoon made our funding application as simple as possible and were on hand to offer advice and guidance throughout. They have been so enthusiastic about the sensory pod and its potential to help our young people and their families. As a thanks to Wooden Spoon for their generosity, we have made them our charity of the year for 2017/2018 and will look to raise some cash for them in any way we can. Their website can be found here
The pod is currently being constructed in our back garden. As you can see, the structure is up and in place. Osbourne Technologies have been working around the clock in connecting it up to our power supply and putting together the interior. Equipped with the biggest I Pad I have ever seen and a whole host of equipment, this is going to be an exceptional resource for the unit. Once fully installed we will be arranging an open day. We will be inviting all families as well as the local press and members of Wooden Spoon. The pod will be named after John Imms who after over 25 years managing Crocus Fields retired in October. He will be cutting the ribbon on our opening day.
Once again, we would like to offer our most sincere thank you to everyone for every single penny raised. We can't wait to have the pod fully up and running!
Welcome to the team!
The end of March saw us interview a large number of candidates for the role of Children's Residential Social Care Worker.
We can now officially welcome three of our four new staff members to the Crocus Fields team.
Jade Mulligan (left) is joining the Crocus Fields team having worked with adults with disabilities for the past five years. Jade's one page plan will be available for the young people and families in the next week. Jade is going to be working at Crocus Fields on a full time basis.
Secondly we congratulate Sarah Cox (right). You are highly likely to recognise Sarah as she
has been working at Crocus Fields for the past 15 years. She comes with a huge wealth of experience having managed the linkwork team until 2010 and has been continuing to work here as a relief worker since. She is now going to be working here on a regularly basis taking on part time hours. Her one page plan will also be available within the next week.
Thirdly we welcome and congratulate Sammy Stead (left) who has started in her role 1 hour and ten minutes ago! Sammy has been managing a breakfast and after school club for young people with a range of needs for the past 6 years. Sammy is going to be working on a part time basis. Sammy's one page plan will be available for young people and families within the next week.
Finally we will be welcoming Conor Ryder to the team next Monday. Conor has been working with young people with disabilities since leaving university two years ago. Once Conor has started with us his one page plan will be written and I will fully introduce him via the next newsletter.
Parents Group...
We are really excited to announce that we are starting a brand new parent and carer support group here at Crocus Fields. This is a support group for Crocus Fields families and for families of our local community who have a child or children with a learning disability. Our first ever meeting will take place on Thursday 11th May 2017, 10.30am – 12 noon and will be held at Crocus Fields. We really want this group to be a success and support as many families and carers as possible. This is your opportunity to meet, talk and share experiences with one another. We would love you all to be a part of this group, please come along for tea and cake and help shape this group.
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