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Your DART orders can change children’s lives.
Last week we told you that we’re donating to four charities that can help those in our sector who are going through hard times. Between July 20th and September 11th, when you spend with us we’ll donate up to £20 to help those hard hit by family, health and external circumstances.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll be telling you more about each of the four charities we’re supporting and the life-changing work they do. Today, we want to tell you more about one of them: the Children’s Variety Charity.
Which charity will you choose?
What does Variety do?
Variety believes that neither disability nor disadvantage should prevent any child or young person from realising their full potential. Since being founded in the UK in October 1949, the charity has supported over one million disabled and disadvantaged children.
When statutory funding can’t meet a child’s needs, Variety steps in. It helps individual disabled children in the following ways:
Specially adapted, accessible transport — the famous Sunshine Coaches —make it possible for children and young people to get out and about to learn practical life skills and enjoy places they otherwise couldn’t get to;
Customised wheelchair grants help to increase mobility and improve independence;
Specialist equipment grants support a child’s development or ability to self-care; and
Memorable experiences, in the form of the Variety Great Days Out programme, provide educational and fun day trips.
How your DART orders help
A recent report by the Disabled Children’s Partnership shows that there is a £1.5 billion funding gap for disabled children’s services in the UK. Variety’s equipment programme aims to support families who are losing out and are in need because of this gap.
Not having access to the right equipment can impact the life and health of, not just a disabled child, but their entire family. Parents and carers of a child with disabilities are more prone to health problems, such as: severe back pain due to lifting, fatigue from needing to wake during the night, and isolation due to difficulties getting out with their child.
NHS England have reported that parent caregivers of children who use wheelchairs have a 90% chance of developing muscular-skeletal damage, and 75% of carers of wheelchair users have no training in how to reduce harm to their health.
These difficulties can be improved by access to the right equipment. By making sure families have access to specialist equipment such as hoists, providing safe sleeping pods and alarms to reduce anxiety at night, and practical mobility solutions, Variety is helping to improve the wellbeing of the whole family. Improved wellbeing, independence and confidence for the child receiving the equipment also has a profound impact on the wider family unit.
So, the donations DART makes on your behalf can benefit disabled children, their brothers, sisters and parents.
How Variety helped Abigail and her mum
The average cost of each equipment request Variety receives is over £2,000, but they also support over 10,000 children each year by providing equipment to organisations. On average, they help 200 children at each organisation they support with equipment. One family that’s benefited from direct support is Abigail’s.
Abigail’s disability affects her walking, and she can tire and fall easily. She has physiotherapy support which helps. She has been prescribed a wheelchair which she likes and is learning how to control and turn. The biggest difficulty has been that, as a single parent, her mother could not push Abigail in a wheelchair and her baby sibling in a pram at the same time; so they couldn’t go out together as a family. Variety funded a combined wheelchair and pram so Abigail’s mother could push both together. They can now go out together as a family without worrying about Abigail getting tired, or the family having to rely on support from other adults.
What will our donations buy?
DART donations will be put to good use. Here are some of the things we’ll be able to help with…
Isolation - Communication devices, play equipment and special car seats reduce social isolation, enabling a child or young person to engage in social play with others.
Independence - Sensory equipment, standers and specialist wheelchairs enable a child or young person to be more independent, improve mobility or enable a child or young person to play alone more easily.
Wellbeing - Hoists, seating and sleep equipment improve wellbeing by enabling the child or young person to more easily care for themselves or enabling parent carers to care more easily. They can make the child or young person more comfortable inside or outside of the home and contribute to Muscle Tone Development.
If you’d like to help other families like Abigail’s, ask us to donate to Variety when you place your next DART order and we’ll make it happen, at no extra cost to you.
You can follow Variety, the Children’s Charity on Twitter, Facebook, or on Instagram.
Gemma Cowley
