2025 is a special year for Newlife as it marks 20 years of the charity transforming the lives of children with disabilities through its Equipment Grant Service.
As with all its services, this began with listening to families and responding to meet their needs in the best way possible. Key to creating the service in 2005 was Newlife Consultant Nurse, Karen Dobson, who still works for Newlife today, alongside Stephen Morgan, Director of Charitable Services, who has been helping to shape the Equipment Grant Service since the beginning.
Karen said: “The Equipment Grant Service came into being when we were still Newlife BDF and had begun receiving numerous calls from families about seating systems – little did we know how big the issue really was!
“The Equipment Grant Service then began as a small trial and we thought we would be providing all the nice things like bikes, trikes and toys to help disabled children, but we found the real issue was that disabled children couldn’t even get the basic equipment they needed. So, we began supporting them and, by doing so, also helping the NHS.
“In those early days the most surprising thing to me was the number of children without the specialist equipment they need, You assume they will have what they need, and that’s not the case at all. There are so many children we have helped over the years, but there are some that I still remember today, stories that were heartbreaking to hear, but really helped shape the direction of the Newlife.
“One of these was a 12-month-old who was taken to see an elderly neighbour to thank him for his birthday money, but while he was there touched an old-fashioned element fire and was electrocuted, leaving him severely disabled. Newlife provided one of the first ever buggies for him. Sometimes children are born with a disability, but life can also change in a split second.”
Stephen said: “We continued to listen to listen to families and discovered NHS equipment wasn’t always arriving quickly enough, sometimes even arriving for a child had passed away. We also found that because families couldn’t access suitable specialist car seats through statutory services, some parents had to resuscitate their child at the roadside.
“So, the initial Equipment Grant Service expanded to fund more equipment, including specialist car seats and we also began to fund Emergency Equipment Loans, when a child just didn’t have time to wait.
“Along the way Newlife became experts in the issues families face and how the NHS and statutory services work and why we have had to step in – and we do this by talking to families and to professionals and through Freedom of Information requests. These are the reasons behind the growth of Newlife and all the changes we have made to our services along the way, including providing loans of specialist toys, so all children can play.
“This knowledge is also why Newlife recently made one of the biggest changes to the Equipment Grant Service in its history, creating a curated list of equipment to meet the majority of needs: specialist beds, buggies, wheelchairs and car seats. We now also have a tighter group of national suppliers and are working with professionals to ensure disabled children and their families receive the right equipment at the right time with the best possible service and with a much more efficient process.
“Now, 20 years later, the urgent need families face for equipment has increased, but Newlife is still fighting to ensure children with disabilities and their families receive the help and support they need, when they need it most, and with your help we can continue to make a difference.”
