Contact a Family

The Enable group is pleased to announce our partnership with Contact a Family, after choosing them to be our charity of the year for 2006.

A corporate partnership like this involves the charity creating fundraising initiatives spread out over the year, specifically tailored to the business that they are working with. They will have strong involvement with this program every step of the way in terms of the support and encouragement given to carry out each fundraising or sponsored activity. The charity will gain more awareness for their cause by being linked to the public through a brand or service, which enables them to continually raise funds that maintain and possibly develop their existing service.

As a charity that is close to our hearts, we will be fundraising for Contact a Family over the coming year through various activities and events. We aim to achieve greater awareness for the valuable work that they do for families of disabled children nationwide and enable them to enhance and expand their existing services.

The following text has been supplied by Francine Bates at Contact a Family.

Contact a Family is a UK wide charity providing support, advice and information to any family with a disabled child.There are over 700,000 disabled children and young people in the UK. Discovering that your child has a disability, health condition or special educational needs is always very difficult and families often feel isolated.

Families tell us that their greatest need is for information. This includes information about entitlements to support and provision for special educational needs for example. And perhaps more importantly for those with a child only recently diagnosed with a rare condition, families are often desperate for medical information that they can understand and some contact with other families. Other families in a similar situation can share experiences and both benefit from mutual support.

Contact a Family can

Put families in touch with support groups or, where there isn’t a group, as is the case with some very rare disorders, link families directly on a one-to-one basis
Put families in touch with any other specialist national or local organisations which may be able to help
Give medical information on all conditions affecting children and young people
Advise on services like getting a short break and families’ rights to benefits and tax credits and other help which may be available
Send any one of our range of factsheets on subjects such as living without a diagnosis; a genetic condition in the family; booklets for grandparents, fathers and siblings as well as practical information about education rights, community care and claiming benefits
Talk to families via an interpreter in over 100 languages if a language other than English is preferred.

To find out more, please get in touch with Contact a Family. All information is free and confidential. The website contains factsheets, copies of the Contact a Family journal “Share an Idea” and a directory of rare conditions and syndromes.