Welcome to our first monthly update on our brand new Crocus Fields website. We hope that it helps us keep parents, families and young people up to date with what has been going on at Crocus Fields over the last month and beyond. As part of our service plan for the year ahead we are aiming to provide parents with monthly newsletters via this site.
Power to the Pod
Over the course of the next year we are aiming to raise a colossal £75000 to go towards a multi-sensory, interactive pod for Crocus Fields. This will act as an extension to the unit and be available to all of our young people, their families and the community of Nottingham. We hope to make the pod available to schools and community groups through a booking system. Last week, Crocus Fields were successful in their application to Nottingham City Council's "Being Great Fund". This initiative allowed City Council services to apply for up to £2000 worth of funding towards a new idea. Added to funds already secured this brings our total raised to just shy of £10,000. Over the next year we hope to raise a further £65,000 towards the project. A number of sponsored events will be taking place over the course of the next 12 months and we are aiming to apply for numerous grants. If you would like to donate to the cause, or if you would like to advertise our efforts, we have set up a Crowd Funding page through just giving. This can be found at https://crowdfunding.justgiving.com/crocusfields2016-2017 However, we would love this to be a communal effort between ourselves, the young people and the families who use Crocus Fields. If you have any ideas on how we can raise this massive amount of money, please don't hesitate to get in touch with us and get on board with the project. We are aiming for the total cost to be raised by the 1st June 2017.
To kick things off, Ashley Saunders has organised a collective unit cycle from John O'Groats to Lands-end. All staff and young people are taking part, collectively cycling the 874 miles.Thanks to the Meadows Youth club we now hav
e a exercise bike in the dining room which is allowing all the young people to clock up miles. In addition to this staff are cycling all over the country. Andy Hodkin and Frankie Shrieves cycled from Nottingham to Skegness and then onto Boston last month. In two weeks Emma Wigley and Carly Mallard are completing the Great Notts Bike ride with two young people. If any families or carers wish to join us on the Great Notts Bike Ride they would be most welcome and can enter by visiting http://www.cyclelivenottingham.co.uk/sunday/.
The course is only a short 25 miles through beautiful parts of Nottinghamshire and Crocus Fields have entered and completed the course with young people of the last two years. It is a fantastic day out and a real achievement for our young people and the service as a whole. For more information about the pod have a look at it on www.sensorypod.co.uk
Research Project
Pete Corkhill is currently completing a Masters degree in autism at Birmingham University. As part of a recent piece of coursework he has compiled a questionnaire for families to complete. He would be extremely grateful if you could take the time to fill this in. It can be completed by both parents as well as foster carers or brothers and sisters. The aim of the project is to assess where we are as a service and look at how we can improve Crocus Fields for the families and the young people who use it. The survey can be completed by visiting https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/petercorkhill
Wembley Trip
Crocus Fields continued their 100% record watching England at Wembley last week. For the fifth time in six years Roy Hodgson's men delivered when called upon by the young people of Crocus. James and Jordan absolutely loved their trip to the capital and cheered England on to a very narrow 1-0.
Training Course for Parents and Staff
As part of our Proving Outcomes plan for the year ahead we have pledged to make some of our training available to and inclusive of parents and families. On the 15th June (10am until 12pm) we have the pleasure of welcoming
John Simpson to Crocus Fields. John was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome late into his teen and delivers training all over the country on what it is like to live with autism. He is an outstanding speaker who gives a fascinating insight into living with autism. If parents, carers or siblings would like to attend this training session please get in touch with Pete Corkhill at Crocus Fields on 01158762286. For more information on John and the training he delivers, have a look at his website at www.inspirationalautismtraining.com . There are also some short videos of him speaking on You Tube.
Contact Details
We want to be able to alert parents when the website is updated or a new newsletter is released. However, we currently only have around 40% of your email addresses. If you know other parents who access Crocus Fields that currently do not receive our updates (and would like them) please ask them to get in touch and we can add them to the mailing list.
Summer Holiday's!
The busiest time of year for Crocus Fields and our families is fast approaching us! Plans are currently being put together for a wide variety of activities for the young people to take part in during their stays. All families should now have received their booking dates over this period. If you have not, please get in t
ouch with your key worker and we can send you out another sheet.
For anyone who has not previously come across them, there is a fantastic youth club for young people with disabilities ran through Nottingham University. Pham runs once a month and takes young people all over the country to places like Cadbury's world and Harry Potter land. It is ran by students and only costs families £5. For more information visit their site at http://www.phabnottingham.com
Each Friday night since March workers from Forest have been visiting an putting on sessions. These have proved a huge success once again. Crocus Fields would like to take this opportunity to thank Lloyd Lacey and the workers at Forest for putting on our weekly sessions. The young people have loved playing football on a weekly basis and look forward to continuing our relationship with the club.
Arty Crocus Fields
A huge thank you is owed to Calum Watts for organising another amazing Art Project with Nottingham Contemporary. You will see throughout our website many of the works produced by the young people during these sessions. Organised with the Contemporary, this is the fifth project that the young people have been part of and have yet again received rave reviews from it's artists in residence.
We strongly recommend families reading the reviews written about our young people's work. They should all be very, very proud of themselves.
We are sad that this will be the last project with the contemporary but must emphasise our most sincere thanks to Sam Metz, Alice Thicket, Calum Watts and all the staff at Crocus Fields who have helped out for their time, effort and organisation getting this project going and making it such a success.
Until Next Month...
Using the website as a way of keeping in touch with parents and families is a method still very much in it's infancy. We welcome any suggestions families have in how we can improve the site for you or keep you up to date with what is happening.
Have a wonderful June, enjoy the summer sun and we shall be in touch again in July!.
Crocus Fields