Funding News

During the current pandemic we are all looking for something to celebrate; here at Sunbeams we are delighted to announce that we have been awarded just under £25,000 from Children In Need to fund our outreach project. Following the success of our well-being activity packs which were delivered to Sunbeams members during the original lockdown we recognised the need for the children and young people to maintain contact with the setting and their peers to support their mental and emotional well-being. Key workers sent their key children messages in cards to let them know we were looking forward to seeing them and encouraging them to respond back. Sunbeams tries to be as flexible as possible and will work with children and young people to find the best way that they can be supported, creating bespoke care packages. After consultation with parents and children registered we formulated a plan to enable us to create an outreach program including the use of technology and encouraged members to develop and share their skills. Since returning from lockdown Sunbeams has adapted services to ensure that we are Covid secure this has meant lowering group attendees and increasing staffing for our younger members to maintain understanding of social distancing. All staff are Covid trained and encourage stringent hygiene with the children and young people with regular sanitizing of hands and equipment and deep cleaning twice a week including full centre fogging.

Only able to attend fortnightly the 6-12yr olds are provided with learning packs individualised to their level of need and ability, in order to maintain their connection with Sunbeams, as consistency is essential in their lives. Children are invited to send in any pictures they have drawn to fill a 'sunshine board' at the Great Yarmouth Railway Station. Thanks to Children In Need Sunbeams has been able to purchase 20 Ipads that have been loaned to children to use so that they can maintain contact with Sunbeams. For many of our children Sunbeams is the only opportunity they have to make friends and socialise with people who are just like them and do not judge them for what or who they are. With this in mind we will be introducing cooking and craft activities via a secure educational app so our children can experience one to one interaction with someone other than their immediate family. We would like to facilitate small group chats where budding friendships can continue to be built on, this would also provide some amazing digital inclusion learning.

It is hoped that the project will last 18months, Sunbeams has worked with children and young people with autism for many years, is staffed by people with lived experience of autism and continues to have a robust management structure that see's both the manager and deputy manager living very closely with autism and learning difficulties, so the understanding of autism and its behavioural connections is on the ground level.

To support development we encourage our members to volunteer and are delighted that we have two members taking part in the project as mentors, creating video clips of the activities to share with others.

To maintain safeguarding and ensure online safety the Ipads are set to prevent access to anything other than what we intend them to be used for. Children and parents will be expected to sign a contract agreeing that they will not be alone with the device. To support development we encourage our members to volunteer and are delighted that we have two members Evie and Ellie-May taking part in the project as mentors, creating video clips of the activities to share with others.