The Hon Susan Cunliffe-Lister, Lord Lieutenant of the East Riding of Yorkshire, is supporting a local initiative to fund more specialist equipment for children with disabilities or terminal illness in the county.
Newlife Foundation for Disabled Children helps dozens of families in the East Riding of Yorkshire, and Mrs Cunliffe-Lister – the Queen’s official representative in the county – is backing the charity’s drive to ensure more local babies, children and young people get the equipment support they need, when they really need it. Mrs Cunliffe-Lister said: “I was very pleased to hear of the work that Newlife is doing in the East Riding of Yorkshire”.
Right now, there are two children with disabilities or terminal illness in the county who needs your help to get the specialist equipment that will really change their lives. That’s why Newlife Foundation – the UK’s leading children’s disability charity – is launching the Newlife East Riding of Yorkshire Fund. It is an opportunity for local people to help local disabled children and every penny donated or fundraised in the East Riding of Yorkshire is guaranteed to support vulnerable families in the county.
Special disability equipment including wheelchairs, walkers, beds, seating and communication aids can help give children independence, keep them safe, relieve pain and overcome challenges. For instance, you could help a child take their first steps or kick a football with their friends. . . .
Together we can really change the lives of disabled children – supporting them to experience and enjoy life and all that we take for granted.
Newlife has already helped 89 children in the East Riding of Yorkshire (see story below) through equipment grants and loans totalling more than £106,900, so we know there is a very real need for a specific county fund. In this way we aim to help more children, more quickly.
Statutory services in the East Riding of Yorkshire often have a responsibility to make equipment provision – but when help is declined, Newlife steps in. The charity challenges many such decisions and has an impressive success rate. However, where we are unable to overturn these decisions, we provide the equipment ourselves through our range of grant and loan services. We do this with the support of front-line health professionals across the East Riding of Yorkshire who have helped Newlife help local children in real need.
The Newlife East Riding of Yorkshire Fund will support equipment provision for under-19s facing any significant disability, whether acquired through birth defect, prematurity, accident or illness.
Vitally, the Newlife East Riding of Yorkshire Fund website – www.newlifecharity.co.uk/eastridingofyorkshire – will enable local people to find out who needs help in their county right now and highlight the support the charity gives vulnerable families. It includes contact details for the Newlife County Liaison Team – tel no 01543 431 444 or email local@newlifecharity.co.uk – and shows specific ways people can help support local disabled children and their families.
That might involve taking part in a local sporting challenge, give you information on how to organise a fundraising event – or even ask you to donate £5 today! Volunteers are also needed to help raise awareness of what we do and how we do it.
We hope that by launching the Newlife East Riding of Yorkshire Fund, children with disabilities or terminal illness in the county won’t have to go without the equipment they need for everyday life.
Newlife Foundation supports families in the East Riding of Yorkshire through a range of free services:
Nurse-staffed helpline
Equipment grants
Emergency equipment loans
Sensory and developmental toy ‘pod’ loans.
SPECIALIST BUGGY OPENS UP A WORLD OF OPPORTUNITIES FOR EUAN
A specialist buggy to safely carry all his emergency equipment means a world of difference to the young life of Euan Mcleod from Bridlington.
Euan – who was born prematurely – has Cerebral Palsy, developmental delay and chronic lung disease. He has oxygen and suctioning equipment on stand-by at all times as he can fall ill very quickly and without warning.
In addition, he is fed through a tube in his stomach.
Because of his equipment needs, and the fact that he cannot sit upright without appropriate postural support, he is not able to safely use a standard child buggy. His parents were using a carry cot on a pram base to take him everywhere but the frame buckled under the weight of all the emergency equipment.
Euan’s occupational therapist recommended a specialist disability buggy at a cost of £3,488 – but there was no statutory funding available. So his parents turned to Newlife Foundation, which has also provided vital seating for him.
Mum Elyse Mcleod said: “We have a functional seat at home for Euan, but he can’t tolerate this for very long. He could sit on our laps on the settee, but he becomes agitated because he wants to be doing things for himself. The only alternative was to put him in his cot, which also made him very upset.
“The specialist seating is perfect. It gives him all the postural support he needs and keeps him comfortable and is at just the right height so his two-and-a-half-year-old brother Tyler can play with him.”
Now the specialist buggy is keeping him safe and comfortable when he is out and about in the local community.
Elyse Mcleod said: “Euan trialled a specialist buggy as part of his equipment assessment. He looked so happy – he was grinning all over the place because he could see the world around him for a change. Having this equipment will make a huge difference to his life.”
Pictured: Euan Mcleod
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