Reading Roadrunners' Charity of The Year 2020
Parenting Special Children

Charity Coordinator, Rachel Helsby: charity@readingroadrunners.org

 

The charity offers specialist parenting support to families of children and young people with Special needs and/or disability in Berkshire. From Autism, ADHD, trauma and attachment, to sleep and diagnosis support they offer a wide range of services. They also run a number of family events each year so that these families can have the sort of every days-out that other families would do routinely.

PSC also helps these families feel less isolated by running a number of support groups. For example they have a group for family members who are caring for children who cannot be cared for by their birth parents and, more recently, they have set up a dads and male carers support group which is proving very popular.  It is always good to talk.

We have  a direct fundraising page for members who wish to raise money for the charity directly https://localgiving.org/fundraising/readingroadrunners/

Money raised through Reading Roadrunners will go towards funding PSC’s sleep service.  Children with additional needs are at increased risk of sleep difficulties and, as a results, parents/carers and siblings also don’t get enough sleep a key element of well-being.

We also team up with PSC on their fundraising especially when there is an opportunity for matched funding. This money may go towards the sleep service or other initiatives.

I hope you will get an opportunity to learn more about the charity and the variety of work it does through meeting the volunteers at club events throughout the year. In the meantime, you can find out more about the charity by visiting their website:

https://www.parentingspecialchildren.co.uk

As your charity organiser, I am committed to giving as much time as I can to the role and, as a very local charity, PSC volunteers are also ready to help me. I am very open to constructive ideas from members about how I can do my role and welcome advice from those that gone before me.  Please do not hesitate to come and talk to me at track on a Wednesday evening.

By raising the visibility of this charity and the work it does, I also I hope I will also encourage us all to think a little more about people that act a bit differently to the norm. To stop and think. To show a bit more compassion. And be kind. Because God knows right now the world needs a bit more of that.

Rachel Helsby