Annual Report

1st

April 2018 to

31st

March 2019

A message from the Chairman, David Cook

and the Board of Trustees- 2017-18

As of December 2018, Grace House became the only

Short Break provider in the City of Sunderland. This

marked a particularly proud moment in the development

of Grace House and is certainly something the Trustees

have been delighted to witness. This was only made

possible because of the fantastic partnership we have in

place with Sunderland Care and Support. This means

that Grace House is a happy, active and thriving short

breaks facility; with children and young people being

able to access the amazing facilities here.

A summary of the kind of things the children can expect

to experience at Grace House include-

Trips to the football match and exclusive visits to the

changing rooms.

Gardening activities including growing fruit and

vegetables

Soft play

The Sensory room

Cookery classes- always popular with all the children

Trips out to the local farm, the beach and parks

The Trustees vision has been to ensure that Grace

House is a place where all the family can feel supported

and this is an area we have developed over the last year.

In addition to the free holistic therapies and counselling

offered to parents we have been able to commence

delivery of counselling provision to siblings and the

children and young people with additional needs. The

counselling being offered to the children is a unique

provision and is something we will be looking to

develop.

2019 sees the end of my tenure as Grace House Chair

and I have been honored to be so closely associated for

so many years, with this wonderful charity. I will miss

the day to day contact, but I will remain in touch, as I am

excited to see what the future will bring for the families

at Grace House. I wish everyone associated with Grace

House much luck and happiness.

There has been a number of positive developments

over the last 12 months within Grace House short

breaks.

Grace House has merged with Sea View Road,

which has resulted in over 60 children and young

people now using the short break service.

We have welcomed over 50 new children in to

Grace House over the last 6 months as well as

some new staff.

Through this fantastic expansion we have been

able to build positive friendships during the

children’s stay with us as well as giving the

children new experiences such as trips to

museums, cinemas and attending a disabled Nurf

tournament.

In November 2018 Grace House had its

annual Ofsted inspection resulting in Good

rating overall. Ofsted commented on how

“the staff are very nurturing and very

aspirational for the children in their care”

Keep active has continued their support with

us and the children really look forward to

these visits. It has led to interest in not only

cooking but shopping for ingredients. This

has given us the opportunity to teach the

children about money and how to buy items

at the shops.

Comments we have received

“Just wanted to say a very big thank you for looking after my child recently when he wasn't well. As I dropped him off I knew that he was really struggling and previously this would have been a hospital admission. He feels really secure at Grace House and you must have given him very careful support because his health was significantly improved when I picked him up .... thank you so so much!”

“Thank you for the thought you have put in to my child’s Transition Plan to adult services. You really do know and understand her needs. Thank you for making it a year long process and being so personalised.”

“Hey just seen some staff with a few of the kids in the metro centre and I must say how fantastic they are. I’ll be reading up on the charity next week.

Keep up the good work 😃”

“Grace House has been my choice of a respite provision for my child before Ofsted gave the thumbs up. I love everything about the building, what you offer, activities done with the kids and especially the staff you have working there. They are a crazy bunch, fantastic with all the children as well as me the parent. They make my child’s stay an enjoyable one and I can relax knowing he's being well looked after”

Family Activities

During the year we heard many parents telling

us about the lack of family activities in school

holidays that would be suitable for families

who had a child with a disability as part of the

family unit. To address that we hosted two

sessions run by the Workers Educational

Association, one offering craft based work and

the second an African Drumming workshop.

We hosted a cookery based family activity

session run by Kreative Kitchen. Feedback

from all activities was extremely positive e.g.

“We really enjoyed the cooking class

today. There was something for everyone to

take part in and the teacher was really good &

gave lots of helpful advice, cooking tips &

shopping suggestions - good money saving

ideas too. We also got to take the recipe

sheets home - so we could make the meals

again. Great that we could take our meals

home too!

The project saw another large increase in

parent carers making use of the provision, with

over 240 people registered with the project by

March 2019.

The holistic treatments on offer were extremely

popular, with all available appointments being

taken, the most requested treatments being

either some form of massage or Reiki. To

emphasise the benefits of Reiki one project

user commented “Before coming in for Reiki I

used to take painkillers almost daily for

headaches but since I’ve been coming in I

haven’t needed to take any painkillers and I feel

so much better”.

Our adult counselling service was also greatly

appreciated, an example of the benefits of the

counselling service was given by a client “I

would just like to thank you so much for

listening to me with empathy and compassion

when I was feeling at my lowest!!”.

Following the success of our adult counselling

service we wanted to extend our counselling

offer both for children with disabilities as well as

non-disabled siblings.

Whole Family support at Grace House

The 2018-19 reporting period saw a continued

growth in the number of families accessing

Grace House for the increased range of support

on offer. Every aspect of our support offer for

parents and other family carers has been

developed based on need and demand with

suggestions being gathered through our regular

consultations with project users.

Children and Young People’s Counselling

For children with additional needs we were

successful with a funding application to the DM

Thomas Foundation to enable us to offer 100

counselling sessions for that group. It is a

unique offer and service and initial feedback

has been very positive. For sibling counselling,

we began working with two counsellors on a

voluntary basis to trial the service and again

early feedback is very encouraging.

Thank You to our Supporters

… And Corporate Partners

An Audience With…

Thank you to Stewart Donald, Charlie Methven, Tony Davison and Kevin Ball for their

help and support at this event held at The Stadium of Light in September. It brought

together twenty former Sunderland AFC players who shared tables with ticket holders.

The Fans Museum showcased their memorabilia and the evening was a great success.

Networking Events

Grace House is now holding regular

networking events which are proving

popular with businesses in the local

area. These meetings are relaxed

and give our supporters a chance to

meet other companies who they

might be able to do business with,

whilst supporting Grace House. We

offer supporters the opportunity to be

a guest speaker at these events

helping to inform fellow supporters

and raise their profile.

Christmas Jumper Day

Christmas Jumper Day

2018 was a huge success

with over 18 businesses

wearing their Christmas

Jumper with pride to raise

funds for Grace House.

Thanks to everyone who

took part, nearly £2,000

was raised!

Roll Call of Honours

• BNI Centurion

• BNI Promenade

• Honest Boy Darts Team

• Wearside Golf Club Ladies

• Our amazing GNR 2018 runners – especially Steven Garrigan who raised over £3,000 for us!

• Mercedes Benz

• Discover Edventure

• Eco Logic

• RTC North

• ACA Financial Services

• HLA

• Towergate – Bishop Skinner

• Inspire Holistics

• Three Horse Shoes

• Margaret Rose Events

• Simon Berry Optometrist

• Holiday Inn Washington

• Green Trousers

• Gentoo

• Liberty Brown

• Macdonald Martin

• Durham Extravaganza

• Brewlab

• Highly Efficient Heating

• Town Centre Automobiles

• Activ Technology

• PG Legal

• Hays Travel

• NC Insurance

• Croner

• Colliery Tavern

• Sunderland AFC

• Sky

• All those who took part in Snowdonia challenge

Grace House wants to say a huge heartfelt thank you to all of those mentioned and anyone else who has supported us with a fundraising activity.

The Grace House Gardens

We received some exciting news in April 2018, with confirmation of

grant funding from Children In Need, which means we can extend the

gardening activities we are able to deliver with the children and young

people.

The children take the lead in this project, deciding with the team what

they want to grow and what fun activities they would like to participate

in. This year they have turned old car tyres into plant pots and are

growing flowers in them, growing pumpkins then turning them into

lanterns at Halloween, growing vegetables has continued to be

popular.

The children enjoyed making Bird Houses, which were put up in the

gardens.

The Sensory Garden

The development of this area has continued following the design from Sean Murray and funding raised by Green Fingers. In 2015 Sean won the BBC/RHS 'The Great Chelsea Garden Challenge' Television competition and designed and built a garden on main avenue at Chelsea Flower Show. Sean’s design for Grace House will mean when the children look out of their bedroom patio doors, they will see a beautiful garden with lovely bright colours. In the garden there are many colours, smells and textures for the children to experience, there is a water feature and shaded areas for the children to play in. We have been grateful for the support of the Washington Holiday Inn as they provided us with a group of volunteers who assisted in the planting and weeding of the garden.

Work Experience Placements

In the last year we have been delighted to have been working with young people from;

• Portland School

• Springboard

• Sunderland College

The Young People have been on work placement with Grace House, so whilst they have been here the tasks

they have helped us with are;

• Reception

• Gardening

• Admin

• Designing and distributing our Volunteers newsletter

• Creating a Grace House calendar

• Taking minutes of meetings

• Organising refreshments for our meeting rooms

• Shredding

• Data inputting

There are many other duties they have helped us with

which are too numerous to mention.

New Team Members

Grace House were delighted to welcome two new Patrons to the Grace House team.

Matt Wylie MBE

Matt is a local lad, born and raised in Sunderland who has cerebral

palsy and underwent a series of operations between 2004 and

2007 after a tumor was discovered on his leg. Following medical

advice, he took up swimming as part of his recovery. After success

in the European Championships in 2014 and 2016 he then went on

to win a Gold Medal in the Men's 50m Freestyle S9 competition at

the Rio Paralympics in 2016.

Matt is an inspirational figure and has demonstrated what can be

achieved through his courage, determination and hard work.

Therefore, we were delighted that Matt agreed to become part of

the Grace House team and support us as a Patron.

Jayne Secker

Jayne is a busy TV journalist, working on Sky News’s lunchtime

programme as well as travelling around the country reporting on

big stories.

Jayne was there at the outset in 2000 when Kathy Secker,

Jayne’s Mum and the founder of Grace House, first came up with

the idea of starting the charity, and she has watched it grow from

an idea at the family kitchen table to the busy place it is today.

Kathy was inspired after meeting families like the Jones’ in

Sunderland with their daughter Grace who the charity became

named after. Grace sadly passed away in 2018.

Jayne explained, “She had supported a number of charities over

the years and saw the affect very poorly children could have on

families. Because of their complex medical needs, it was not easy

to hand over care to someone else. Most parents and siblings

had never had a day off. Mum thought why not build a place the

children could come and have fun and be happy and safe, while

the rest of the family could get some much-needed respite. Even

24 hours off could make a massive difference.”

In a recent visit to the North East Jayne popped by the charity,

Jayne said “I last visited Grace Hose in May 2016 and it was just

finding its feet, I can’t believe how busy it now is. It’s brilliant to

see so many children using all the facilities. I can remember mum

spending hours deciding what cheerful colours the bedrooms

would be and what could go into the sensory room. Seeing these

spaces really being used is so satisfying”.

Case Study - Lisa

Lisa is a single mum in her 50s with a teenage son Matt with a range of severe physical disabilities. They live in

the north of Sunderland, Matt is the only child in the family. Due to the range and severity of Matt’s disabilities

he requires frequent operations and is often in considerable pain. Lisa also has a range of health problems

including fibromyalgia, depression, asthma and a weakened immune system.

Lisa became aware of the services offered by Grace House at an event organised by the Sunderland Parent

Carer Forum and immediately wanted to register with the One Place, Your Space project. Over the last few

months she has accessed the adult counselling service and has benefitted from receiving 10 counselling

sessions. She also regularly attends for holistic treatments with a number of our therapists.

The feedback received from Lisa has been extremely positive and she has described Grace House as an oasis

in her incredibly busy and pressurised life. As a result of accessing the project Lisa has reported improvements

in:

• her physical health;

• her mental health;

• the quality of her family life;

• the amount of tension experienced within the family;

• her social networks;

• her previous feelings of isolation and loneliness.

Matt is now accessing the counselling service being piloted for children with disabilities and is part way through

his allocated sessions. The feedback on the process so far is very positive and he is opening up far more in

relation to his issues that he has previously done.

DM Thomas

Rolls Royce

Gentoo Aspire

Hospital of God LEAF

St James Place

National Lottery

Community Fund - OPYS

We are grateful to the following grant giving Trusts and Foundations that have supported our work this year:

Awards for All

Children in Need Hadrian Trust

SIB

Rothley Trust

CLLD

Children in Need

WCDT

Victoria Brown Review of April 2018- March 2019.

We are a small staff team and we rely

heavily on the efforts and contribution of

our volunteers and supporters.

The volunteers help with so many tasks

including reception, gardening, DIY,

driving the minibus, and help with

fundraising. Since the start of the Grace

House campaign the commitment of the

volunteers has added so much passion

and determination to our efforts; without

them we wouldn’t be the busy thriving

Charity we are now.

We are hopeful the coming year will

bring further positive development for the

families of Grace House.

Grace House has had another fantastic year;

we are now the only short break provider in

Sunderland; which supports children and

young people with complex disabilities aged 5

to 17 years and 11 months old. We were

delighted to receive news at Christmas time to

confirm the National Lottery Community Fund

are going to support another project, this will

provide support to families to reduce isolation

and opportunities to enjoy family activities. We

have also started to offer counselling support

to the children with additional needs.

I want to start my review

of the year with a

sincere thank you to

everyone who has

supported Grace House

over this last year and

more.