Creative, coproduced, community (short break) options for disabled children
This is an exciting new partnership project that sees Community Catalysts working with Nottingham City Council. Starting in September 2022 and running for 10 months.
The project has a focus on disabled children and young people and their families. It aims to find ways to increase the range of options, activities, groups and opportunities available in the City. Opportunities rooted in local communities that give young people and their families a break from each other, whilst also enabling children to have a great time.
Community Catalysts is a Community Interest Company that works as a catalyst – to build on the strengths of people and communities. We work to ensure people can get the help and care they need in ways, times and places that suit them, with real choice of attractive local options. We help local people use their energies and talents to establish or adapt enterprises and ventures that deliver sustainable care and health services for other local people, creating jobs and volunteering opportunities. We use our expertise to help communities, organisations, authorities and policy makers to deliver the transformational change in services or systems needed to make this a reality.
We know from positive, past experience that Nottingham is a vibrant city full of entrepreneurial and community-minded people.
Our new project will build on all that is great about Nottingham and its citizens. We will develop and test a new approach – making sure we hear first from parents and carers and are aware of what is really wanted and needed.
Offering a tailored development programme, it will help local people who already run organisations, enterprises and groups to diversify what they do. It will help them to understand what is needed by young people and their families and take steps to offer it. It will also work with the council to help them adapt the ways they currently buy activities and support, developing new ways that work for a wider range of community organisations.
We are particularly interested in developing opportunities for children and young people who have complex health needs and/or physical disabilities; those who communicate in ways that others find challenging; youngsters with a learning disability or who are autistic. We are focussing on children over 8 and on teenagers in particular.
We are hopeful that enterprises and groups that emerge from the process will offer local support that enables children and young people to do a range of different things in their community, funded by the council as much as possible, either directly or using Direct Payments.
We are only just getting started so right now have more questions than answers. We are busy drawing up lists of people who have a real interest in this issue – and who might be interested in working with us to get it right. You might be a parent or young person, an established organisation or group or a supporting professional.
If that sounds like you then do get in touch with Debbie John Debbie.john@communitycatalysts.co.uk and put your name on the contacts list.