So the holidays are over and everyone is back at their desks and working hard to launch a new year at North West Disability Services (NWDS). As for myself, 2011 started with a bang with our Flexible Respite & Leisure Link school holiday program!

These 2 week programs run alongside the school terms and are held during the school holiday breaks, for children that have Flexible Respite or Leisure Link packages. The fortnight includes a range of different activities including rock-climbing, movies, farm days, jumping castle fun, arts and crafts and bushwalking.

Our groups consist of roughly 10 children with disabilities per day and around 5 staff members, as well as additional volunteers or students. As the coordinator of this program I worked in the groups on the frontline to ensure safety and supervision at all times (and secretly I just wanted to be there too!) I know 10 children doesn’t seem like that many, but with the range of disabilities, ages and personalities we have here each day, it’s a recipe for mischief, fun and a very messy building!

It’s a fantastic program and the children have a great time. It’s also a valuable source of holiday respite for our carers, as school holiday periods can often be a stressful time for them with the children at home all day, especially when one parent still has to go to work.

We also ran a 3 day camp to Camp Breakaway in San Remo on the Central Coast at the beginning of January. This took a lot of planning and organisation to get underway as well as strong encouragement to get our carers onboard with the idea. I find that in my area, as I generally work with families and children, I have some carers that can be concerned with sending their child away on camp for a few days.

Fortunately, the camp went ahead with 8 clients aged between 14-18 years of age and 4 staff. It was a great success for us and a huge support to the families to have that respite. I will be planning more sleepover events and camps in the future.

For now, I’m onto continuing with our individual respite programs to make sure I’m on target with hours delivered and moving smoothly towards the end of financial year when I will receive my 2011-2012 referrals.