Posts Tagged :

illness

Outings and events for the whole family

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We know that everyone in a family is deeply affected by the illness of a child or sibling. It can mean that families are separated for long periods of time during treatment phases, with routines and day-to-day life changing to manage the demands of treatment plans and medical procedures.

Spread a Smile organises outings, events and activities that aim to support young patients, their parents, carers and siblings and bring moments of respite, joyful experiences and enduring memories at the most challenging of times.

Gary Broadway (Family Events Coordinator) and Ellen Walker (Head of Family Events)

Our Head of Family Events, Ellen Walker, shared a bit more about our family events programme and why it is so important.

“Illness can bring with it huge amounts of stress and pressure for the families we support. There often isn’t much time for outings or fun family activities and sometimes there can be added financial pressures should one parent need to stop working to help care for an unwell child.

“Our family events programme aims to support families going through these extremely difficult situations. All of our outings are completely free of charge and range from trips to the theatre to see shows such as The Lion King, zoo visits, tea parties, workshops, cinema outings, parties, Formula 1 days, cooking experiences and so much more.

“The whole family is invited and it’s a chance for them to just relax and have fun. They can also meet and share with other families who have been through similar experiences. We make the events as fun as possible with lots of food, drinks and treats. Plus, our amazing entertainers are always on hand with music, magic, face-painting, arts and crafts and so much more. There’s such a positive, party atmosphere and a real sense of family and community and we receive such lovely feedback after events, with parents telling us the difference they have made. It’s a chance for them to create happy memories together and that is so important.

“So far this year, we’ve curated 36 brilliant events for the families, welcoming hundreds of children along with their siblings and family members. The majority are focussed in around the London area to correspond with our services provision, and we try to make sure they appeal to a range of ages, also catering for all family members that join us. This year we have introduced more events aimed at teenagers and also children with additional needs.

“Our next event is our annual Winter Party when we hope to welcome over 600 people during the day. It’s looking set to be an incredible event with delicious food stands, sweet treats, games, activities, entertainment and more. We also have an annual Summer Party in Coram’s Fields which is wonderful and much loved by our families. It’s location means that in-patients from Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) are able to come down and spend a bit of time with us should they be well enough to do so.

“As we head into 2025, we aim to provide up to four events a month, meaning well over 40 events this year. We’re always extremely grateful to our volunteers who give up their time to support our events and make sure they are as successful as possible. Also to our wonderful supporters for sponsoring or helping to fund them. We’re really excited about our plans this year and are looking forward to welcoming more families, helping them to create a bank of happy memories.

You can find out more about our family events here. If you are company who would like to support or sponsor our events, please do get in touch with us by email.

Supporting our NHS hospital and hospice partners

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As a charity, our aim is to provide entertainment and support to children struggling with serious and chronic illnesses and conditions. A large part of our work achieving this is by working with NHS hospital and hospice partners to reach children and young people receiving treatment and care in their settings.

We currently work in partnership with 35 NHS hospitals and 6 hospices and in today’s blog, our Director of Services, Laura Walter, shares more about this important area of our work.

“Spread a Smile’s journey started nearly 12 years ago in Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) when our Co-Founders started taking a small team of entertainers in twice a month to visit and provide entertainment to young patients on the wards. It wasn’t long before word of our work spread and demand for our in-hospital services started to grow, leading to expansion into other large specialist children’s hospitals and hospitals offering specialist care for young people such as St Mary’s Hospital, The Evelina Children’s Hospital, University College Hospital (UCLH).

“Being a London based charity, the natural focus for expansion has been London and surrounding areas and our partnerships have often started with approaches by hospitals for support, to compliment existing play services and help fill gaps in resource to provide children with distraction and opportunities for play. 

“When the Covid pandemic hit, we were no longer able to go into hospital to visit children in person. This was devastating for everyone involved and at a time where children in hospital needed play opportunities, support, and distraction more than ever before. So, we quickly started to offer our services virtually – initially to our hospital partners and any children struggling with illness who needed support. As a result, this has led us to expand our services beyond London to larger specialist children’s hospitals across England such as Bristol Royal Hospital for Children and Nottingham Children’s Hospital, offering virtual entertainment that can be accessed from anywhere.

“In recent years, we have also started to support smaller District General Hospitals around London, prioritising those with Paediatric Oncology Shared Care Units (POSCU). These hospitals often don’t have access to the same resources and support in areas such as play and entertainment. Our aim is to provide a regular touchpoint for young patients coming through these hospitals, giving them ways to access our services should they be referred somewhere else or need us virtually. 

“Going forward, demand for our services is ever growing and we have spent time over the past few months looking at this need and how we can provide the best support with the most impact. As we head into 2025/26, we’ll be focussing on equalising support across our London based specialist hospitals and continuing to try and reach as many children and young people as possible with serious and chronic illnesses in this area. We know from experience, that this is where our work can have the most impact.  We will also continue to support our current 6 hospice and District General Hospital partners.

“Beyond that, we’ll be developing our work supporting specialist children’s hospitals across the country with the aim of eventually supporting every one of these settings in England. This piece of work has already started with our work in the North West providing in person visits monthly to The Christie Hospital in Manchester and we are looking forward to expanding into two more hospitals in the North West over the coming year.

“When we visit a hospital, although the partnership may focus on supporting the most seriously unwell children, no child is ever left out. Our entertainers can be found singing to children in reception areas, waiting for general appointments, doing magic tricks for parents in waiting rooms and generally spreading smiles to any child visiting a hospital.

“Our plan is to do what we do now as well as possible and to maximum effect. Then as we grow as a charity we’re excited to reach into new areas and new parts of the country, spreading the Spread a Smile magic to as many families that need us as possible.”

To stay up to date about our plans and work, please sign up to our monthly e-newsletter. We’d also love to hear from you if you or your company can support or fundraise for us in any way. Email the team today at fundraising@spreadasmile.org

Thank you.

Forever Colours – new hospice partner

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Spread a Smile today announces its newest hospice partner, Forever Colours, a children’s hospice which cares for families of children with learning disabilities and life-limiting and life-threatening conditions as well as those with profound-and-multiple learning difficulties across Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes.

Spread a Smile’s mission is to bring joy and laughter to as many seriously ill children as possible in NHS hospitals, clinical settings, hospices and homes across the UK.  Forever Colours joins five other hospices, and 32 major and speciality NHS hospitals already supported by Spread a Smile, taking the charity one step closer to its aim, to spread smiles across the whole of the UK.

The Spread a Smile team of talented entertainers, including musicians, artists, magicians and therapy dogs, will support regular events for the children and their families at Forever Colours, spending quality time with patients and helping to spread smiles through music, magic, singing and more.  The most recent activity at Forever Colours, supported by the charity, was the hospice’s Summer Fete at the beginning of June which was attended by their entertainers.

Children and young people supported by Forever Colours will also benefit from treat drops and virtual entertainment, all with the aim of spreading smiles and a lot of happiness.

Forever Colours, family Support worker, Vicki Nicholson, is delighted by this partnership. “The joy the Spread a Smile team brings to the faces of the children and their families we support is always heartwarming to see, and we couldn’t be happier that this partnership is going to create more smiles! Everyone at Forever Colours is very grateful”.

Laura Walter, Spread a Smile Director of Services added, “It is a pleasure to be working with the amazing team at Forever Colours to help bring some joy and laughter to their children and families. Most recently we were delighted to join them for their Summer Fete, meeting some of the children and their families and helping to spread smiles with singing, music, balloons, bubbles and more. It was a very special day, and we are looking forward to many more in the future.” 

To find out more about Spread a Smile’s work supporting NHS hospitals and hospices, please click here.

Support our Summer Party

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On Thursday 25 July, over 400 guests will join us for the annual Spread a Smile Summer Party, described by one parent as “the most fun per square metre in London.”

The Summer Party is a wonderful free event where we welcome the seriously ill children and young people we support along with their siblings and family members for a fun-filled day with loads of activities, entertainment and treats.

The party will take place at Coram’s Fields because of its proximity to Great Ormond Street Hospital, which means even more children receiving treatment will be able to join us.

Families can register to join our Summer Party here.

We want to make this our best Summer Party yet and give our families some very happy memories to treasure forever. Please donate what you can to help us to do just that.

£50 could pay for glitter tattoo kits so we can adorn all the guests with a sparkly tattoo

£100 could pay for nail varnish for our nail bar and as take-home gifts afterwards (which is for infection control purposes)

£500 could pay for all the drinks at the party

£750 could pay for reusable water bottles to gift to all children at the party

£1,000 could pay for costumes for our fancy dress corner

£1,500 could pay for chocolate, sweets, crisps and fruit

£2,500 could pay for art supplies for arts and crafts activities, including tote bag decorating, friendship bracelet making and lots more.

Donate here!

Thank you so much for your support.

Family event for teens at Mallow

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Mallow is a 100% plant-based restaurant in the heart of London’s Borough Market and earlier this month Spread a Smile welcomed some of the families we support to the restaurant for a delicious vegan brunch.

 

The event was specifically aimed at young people over the age of 12 and a bespoke, engaging opportunity for them to enjoy themselves and meet other young people in a beautiful setting over brunch. Being a teenager in hospital and undergoing treatment for serious illness can feel extremely challenging when you have to spend long periods of time away from friends and social activities. The entertainment options often feel much more limited, and it can prove to be an extremely isolating time.

 

The brunch provided a special time for our teens to be teenagers together and it was lovely to see everyone chatting away together and spending quality time with their families.

 

As usual, we made sure our Spread a Smile entertainers brought some extra joy to the morning, with our spontaneous poet Judge the Poet sharing his talents and Rosie providing music and singing to help spread smiles.

 

Mallow is the sister venue of Mildred’s restaurants who have partnered with and supported Spread a Smile for a number of years. We are so grateful to the amazing team at mallow for making us so welcome and to everyone from Mallow and Mildred’s for going the extra mile to help provide these wonderful experiences for our families.

 

Please get in touch if you’d like to explore ways to support Spread a Smile through our creative partnership opportunities.