Another Successful Parent and Carer's Pamper Day in Northern Ireland

This year our Northern Ireland Parent and Carer's Pamper Day was organised by our new member of staff, Gayle Baird. The event was held at the Hilton Hotel and Country Club in Templepatrick; 15 of our parents and carers from the surrounding areas attended for a relaxing day of spa treatments and use of the hotel's facilities.

All were able to make use of the Jacuzzi, steam room, sauna and swimming pool at the hotel. On top of this each parent was entitled to a treatment at the spa. The most popular treatments were an aromatherapy back massage – popular with the dads - while most mums went for a body scrub treatment. According to those who attended, the body scrub treatment left people smelling of roses. The treatment's were such a success one of the parent's remarked that afterwards she had the best nights sleep in years.

All parents also attended a lunch with Gayle and Gillian, our Child and Family Support Coordinator in the area. We would like to thank those parents who came along, as it was such a successful day, and we have had some really positive feedback. One parent mentioned it was not only a relaxing day, but also a good chance to meet and talk to other parents.

During the lunch our staff received a special surprise as Joanne Regan presented them with a £1000 cheque. Joanne cycle from the most northerly point of Ireland to the most southerly point, Mizen Head, Cork. Congratulations and thank you to Joanne for her recent fundraising.

Cheque Presentation with Gillian and Gayle

If you would like any more information of events in the Northern Ireland area, please do not hesitate to contact Gayle Baird.

Thank you to our Northern Ireland team and to the Hilton Hotel in Templepatrick.

Posted by Emily Honey, Fundraising Assistant.

Brain injury families need strong network of support - Belfast Telegraph Article

The brain controls who we are, what we think, feel and do. It's a little-known fact that, through accident or illness, an estimated one in 30 children and young people in the UK will sustain a brain injury each year. As the injury happens after birth, we call it an acquired brain injury (ABI).

Thankfully, most will make a great physical recovery; they will be discharged from hospital and, eventually, return to school. Life kind of gets back to normal.

Over time, however, there may be some changes in personality and/or behaviour that might be of concern. They may look perfectly fine, but it's obvious that all is not okay.

The full effects of the brain injury may not be known for some time, perhaps even years after the event. This is because the young person's brain is still developing.

Did you know that your brain continues to develop until you are well into your early twenties? It's the not knowing that is hardest for most parents we work with.

Often, it is increasing demands of being at secondary school that brings issues to light. For those with an ABI, it can be very difficult indeed.

A young person with an ABI may often tire more easily, leading to problems with concentration and taking instructions.

There can also be issues with memory, where a child can remember information they learnt prior to brain injury, but then struggle to take on new information.

This can be incredibly frustrating for the young person and confusing for their teachers and family.

Sometimes, changes in personality can also take place; essentially, friends and family have to get to know a slightly different person.

Part of the support the Child Brain Injury Trust provides helps children and young people maintain friends and explains to peers what happens when you have an acquired brain injury.

It's important to say that every child is different; there is no textbook to explain how to deal with someone who has an ABI.

How and where the injury takes place in the brain has a lot to do with it too, so the nature of the damage may vary.

Your skull is only about as thick as three pennies stacked on top of each other, so even if the skull is not fractured, the brain can be jarred, potentially damaging our internal 'wiring'.

When a child returns to school and these non-medical issues arise, it can be hard for parents to know what to do. This is where the Child Brain Injury Trust can help.

We can supply information, support and training to anyone affected by childhood-acquired brain injury. This includes the child, or young person, themselves, their family and the professionals who support them.

We produce factsheets and publications and also offer training workshops and masterclass lectures.

There are events and activities for families to take part in and through our Give a Child a Chance small grants scheme, we can purchase equipment to help children.

Individual family support is delivered through our team of regional child and family support co-ordinators (there are two covering Northern Ireland).

Of course, all the work we do is only possible through the generosity of supporters and we are fortunate in Northern Ireland to receive some funding from the health and social care boards.

However, we want to be able to expand our services, so that we are able to reach more families, offer more events and increase the number of activities to the families we support.

In order to do this, we need your help. If you are interested in doing something for charity, whether it's big or small, why not do it for the Child Brain Injury Trust?

Lisa Turan is chief executive of the Child Brain Injury Trust www.childbraininjurytrust.org.uk.

This article was published in the Belfast Telegraph on Thursday 20th June 2013.

Friday Fundraiser - Pascal Arnoux

As a new feature we have decided to highlight a supporter fundraiser who has gone above and beyond the call duty. We will aim to make this a fortnightly feature, but we thought 'Fortnightly Friday Fundraiser' was a bit of a mouth full. 

The Friday Fundraiser for this week is Pascal Arnoux. Pascal is planning to cycle from Lands End to John O'Groats. But this is no ordinary cycle ride, along with a team of 6, Pascal aims to cycle from one end to the country to the other in relay taking no more than 60 hours. Among the team joining him, is his son Olivier. The team set off at 8am on Sunday 30th June and plan to arrive at John O'Groats on Tuesday 2nd July by 8pm.

We would like to thank Pascal and his team for their wonderful fundraising so far. To date they have raised £2645. They had originally set themselves a target of £2000; however, after speaking to Pascal the other day he is now aiming for £3000 in light of the generosity of friends, family and customers.

In order to raise the money Pascal has been running a raffle; he is raffling off a gourmet night meal for two in his restaurant, The Old Vicarage.Tickets are £10 each and they will continue to be sold throughout the summer, with a draw at the end of September. We would like to thank Pascal and his customers for their support.

We truly appreciate all of our fundraisers, and understand everyone has their own reasons for fundraising. Pascal chose to fundraise for the charity after a good friend of his passed away recently.

"Sadly a good friend of mine, Steve, passed away only a month ago. Even more tragically, Steve's son Harry was recently involved in a hit and run accident, which resulted in Harry being struck by an oncoming train after the car he and his mother were travelling in was pushed onto the railway. After being in a coma for a couple of months, he is now slowly recovering from his injuries at the Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool. It is because of this that I have decided, in memory of Steve, to raise money for the charity which continues to help take such good care of his son."

If you would like to show your support for Pascal his fundraising page is: www.justgiving.com/pascal-arnoux.

One last thank you to Pascal and everyone who has donated to his team. With the help of fundraiser's like Pascal, we can continue to support children like Harry.

If you are interested in holding your own fundraising event, then feel free to contact Emily Honey, who would be happy to discuss it with you.

Issues of ABI and Youth Offenders Finally Being Discussed in Parliment

As a charity who are actively involved in raising awareness of the link between brain injury and youth offending we were pleased to hear the Justice Secretary, Chris Grayling's speech yesterday.

Justice Secretary Chris Grayling mentioned the important statistics relating to brain injury and youth offending in a passage outlining the needs of young people in custody. Mr Grayling said:

“Astonishingly, it’s far more likely than not that if you’re a young person in custody you will have experienced a traumatic brain injury. Somewhere between 65 and 70%”

You can view the whole speech here: https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/crime-in-context-speech.

This statement was not news to us here at the Child Brain Injury Trust. We have been working with professionals from youth offending services to raise awareness of the issues for the last four years, and to help support these young people. So far we have trained almost 1,000 practitioners in the area, with almost no funding.Our Training Manager, Louise Wilkinson, even received the UKABIF award for Inspiration in 2012 for her awareness raising work on behalf of young offenders affected by acquired brain injury.

We are co-founders of the cross representative Criminal Justice and Acquired Brain Injury Interest Group formed in October 2010, and are delighted that the issues we have known about for some time are at least being highlighted in parliament – but we still have a long way to go to really support this group of vulnerable people.

If you would like to hear more about our youth offending work, then please feel free to contact Louise Wilkinson.