Support growing numbers of children
More children, more families, more complex care means our service needs to expand to meet these needs and our costs will inevitably increase, so your continued support is vital to our future.
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The care we provide will need to meet the increasingly complex medical needs of the children – 92 per cent of our respite care sessions require two care staff. This requires more clinical training and support as well as the support of specialist medical consultants, so we can keep children safe and comfortable.
- As children are living longer with their highly complex medical conditions, we will be caring for more teenagers and young people over the next two decades. This means we need the right facilities and equipment such as baths, changing stations and hoists, plus the right space so they can move about freely in their wheelchairs.
Broaden family support
Our care and support touches every aspect of a families life and is tailored entirely to their needs, which can change on a continuous basis.
- As well as providing clinical care for their seriously ill child, our family support team are helping with any social care needs they have from transport to reach hospitals and schools and accessing cost of living benefits to obtaining medical equipment and a place where the whole family is able to go on holiday safely with all the facilities and support they need.
- Our play workers are there to help provide a stimulating environment for all the children as well as fun events and activities the whole family can join in with, so they can take a much-needed break from 24/7 caring. They help every child we support reach their full potential through play and development.
- Our counselling and complementary therapy services support the mental and physical health and wellbeing of the whole family, while sibling workers provide essential 1-2-1 time and dedicated events for children who need someone to talk to and space just for to share, grow, develop and be themselves.
- This very wide and ever-changing whole family support needs an increasingly diverse range of professional skills among our Family Support Services team, from social workers and counsellors to play workers and complementary therapists. We are continually expanding and evolving our care and support to deliver the services the families need.
Enhance end of life service
We are a vital partner in community healthcare services, working with local NHS hospitals to provide more choice for families in end of life care – care that starts when a seriously ill child and their family are first referred to Julia’s House, is there until the worst happens and their child reaches the end of their life and continues to support them after their child has died.
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We work closely with the NHS and other local health services to carefully prepare and plan to support a family at the end of their child’s life, ensuring the complex medical support and equipment is in place, the nurses and carers are available and we have everything in place for whatever the family may need, whether we are supporting them at home or at the hospice.
- At end of life, our nurses and carers are by a family’s side 24/7, caring for their child with specialist clinical support and arranging complementary therapies that can help keep them comfortable. And we provide practical help, so they can focus on their child - organising visitors, making everyone breakfast, arranging for play and sibling workers to be there for their other children or just being a shoulder to cry on.
- We offer bereavement support for the whole family for five years after their child has died, including specialist counselling and play and art therapy.
- Being able to give families whatever support they may need, at home or in the hospice, and more choice of where and how to spend their last moments with their child, means we will need more specialist consultants and more clinical training for our nurses to provide the medical guidance needed for children with increasingly complex conditions. We need more nurses to be there to care round the clock at the end of a child’s life and increased space for the whole family to be able to stay with their child and spend their last moments all together.
