St Johns Handicapped Childrens Trust - Kids Week
Financial Times 12th April 2008
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It’s almost too much excitement for 14 year-old Alice. She’s part of a plastic pirate’s ship crew, spraying water cannons at a bastion of similarly armed land-based attackers. Sunshine scatters off water jets and blazes from everyone’s orange ‘Kids Week’ T-shirts. Everyone is soaking, everyone is laughing. The happy sight is standard on Alton Towers theme park’s Battle Galleons ride. But this is hardly a standard crew.
Alice has Down’s syndrome. Screaming with joy, she grips her carer, Sophie Rees, a 21 year-old Oxford University classics student (left, and further down at Alton Towers). Other crewmates are an autistic boy, an engineer, a girl with learning difficulties, and an MP’s secretary. Shore batteries are manned by a lawyer, a boy with behavioural problems, a medical student and another Down’s syndrome girl. As usual on Kids Week, it’s hard to tell whether adult carers or children are having the most fun.
“Kids Week is the name of two annual residential holidays for children with physical and learning disabilities; four days over Easter with around 12 children and helpers, and a week in summer with 30 of each,” explains 23 year-old recruitment consultant Frank Brinkley, who led this Easter’s Kids Week (right, leading the morning singalong). “We stay in Alton Castle, Staffordshire, and put on activities like swimming, riding, pottery and the day at Alton Towers. Each child has 24 hour, one-on-one care from a volunteer helper, usually a student or a young professional. It gives parents a break, and the children a great time.
“We accept children who might not be accepted on other holidays. They may have cerebral palsy, Down’s syndrome, autism, ADHD, or social problems such as school exclusion. The only thing that could exclude them from Kids Week is a record of violence.”
The holidays are organised by the St John’s Handicapped Children’s Trust, a Roman Catholic charity founded in 1975 at John's Beaumont prep school near Windsor. The children are recruited from schools and social services around Windsor and west London.
Catholicism remains core to the holidays, but it’s not evangelical. “Religion can be a good binder” according to Sophie Rees. “I’m not religious, but the evening prayers are calming, and make children and helpers look back over the day.”
Kids Week’s holiday base is Alton Castle (left, with helper Leo Brumby and child), actually a monastery built on the site of a castle, now a Catholic youth retreat centre. It commands superb views from its clifftop perch, and adds a Harry Potter-esque feel to Kids Week, especially during meals in the old chapel and in the dorms shared by children and helpers. “I was concerned about the sleeping arrangements,” admits Rees. “But it was quite nice to all be together actually.”
Helpers are recruited by Kids Week veterans. “It’s great that everyone is a personal recommendation” says Brinkley, himself recruited by his elder brother in 2003. “They go through all the requisite CRB [Criminal Record Bureau] checks of course, but you’ve got to know someone well to know they’ll be right for Kids Week. You’ve got to be fun and energetic, even if you don’t feel like it, ready to sing a song or pretend to be an animal. It’s not about looking cool, ever.”
The resultant atmosphere is exuberant fun with an undercurrent of calm professionalism. There are always medical people amongst the helpers. Training is undertaken on the job by experienced helpers, within a framework of strict laws such as ‘two helpers with a child during intimate care’ (e.g. bottom wiping).
The goal for the helpers, beyond safety, is that the children have the best time possible (helper Oli Newton, left). The first step is understand one’s child. Given the severity of some handicaps, this is not always easy.
Banker Christopher Hugo, 35 year-old Kids Week veteran, says: “I looked after a child once who couldn’t walk or speak, but he waved his arms in the air with excitement whenever a lorry passed. He became upset during pottery in Stoke, so two of us wheeled him to a bridge over a dual carriageway. We spent an hour there, waving our arms and whooping every time a lorry went underneath. It was surprisingly good fun.”
Longer-term benefits for the children are varied. For some children, it may be their first social interaction. Helper Rosie Rogers, a 25 year-old medical student, adds: “For those from a deprived background it can be a wonderful opportunity to see what life might be like. One of the Easter kids kept insisting he’d end up in jail like his uncle. Several helpers had chats with him about other possibilities. Hopefully, he took some of that to heart.
“For parents,” continues Rogers, “as well as a break, Kids Week may be the first step towards independence for their children.” (enjoying an Alton Castle packed lunch, right)
Rogers looked after Judy Pantridge’s daughter Joanne, a 10 year-old girl with Down’s syndrome. Pantridge confesses: “I was terrified about leaving Joanne. It was her first time away for more than a night. But I was so impressed by Rosie that I was put at ease. She asked all the right questions and bonded with Joanne immediately.”
“It’s equally good” adds Rees, “for the helpers. They’re shipped off to a castle in Staffordshire to concentrate on something completely different from their normal lives. It increases subjectivity, changes the way you react to everyday challenges, and builds tolerance and patience. It’s moving, not from some cheesy way of seeing smiles on children’s faces, but from the sense of unity amongst the helpers and the children.”
This sense of unity (“I’ve made some excellent friends on Kids Week” says Hugo) is manifest in fund raising. It’s performed by various social events, including a big ball in Hammersmith every other November for Kids Week alumni and friends.
After 24 hours a day thinking almost solely about their child, the worst part for helpers is saying goodbye. “I usually get misty eyed”, confesses Hugo. Rogers, who sat with Judy Pantridge at the end to teach her Joanne’s favourite Kids Week song, is pragmatic: “I’m happy to know she’s returning to such a happy home.”
Some names have been changed
To find out about the holidays, see www.sjhct.org.uk . To donate an auction prize for the fundraising ball in November this year, contact this article’s author: angusw01@btinternet.com
Copyright The Financial Times Ltd, photos Angus Watson
