Our family liaison officers (FLOs) are available 24/7 to provide parents with emotional support and facilitate the provision of the practical and therapeutic services they need.
Our social workers support the work of our family liaison officers and provide professional family assessments, when necessary. They look at every factor which may be impacting how a family is coping to ensure the most impactful support. In addition, they liaise with other organisations, agencies and local authorities to ensure a co-ordinated approach and prevent overlap of services.
Our family liaison officers often know exactly what a family needs even before they do. They can arrange services such as: cleaning help or a hot meal when parents have had a prolonged or unexpected hospital admission. It’s these practical services which seem small that can make a huge difference between families coping or not.
Many ill children have very specialist equipment needs, such as a chair for a child with uncontrolled pain or a braille Monopoly set. We can take the stress away for parents by researching and providing them with this equipment.
The diagnosis of a child needing round-the-clock care and, with it, possibly the loss of one or both incomes, can plunge a family into financial hardship. Benefits are becoming more complicated and some parents give up, rather than face the mountain of bureaucracy to get the help that they are entitled to. Camp Simcha’s benefits specialist, Anne has many years of experience in care homes and for charities, advising people on benefits. On an individual basis, she can support families and explain what benefits or other help they are entitled to through local and health authorities.
“The main help is in completion of complex and very long forms needed to apply for benefits. I have nearly 40 years’ experience of this and even if the formats change they don’t daunt me like they would families already in an emotional state.” Anne Shine Benefits Advisor
If we have had a significant stay at hospital and exhaustion has kicked in, our FLO will organise some food, making our first evening home more bearable. Although this appears a small gesture on paper, it means so much to us as a family – that Camp Simcha is able to provide that little bit of respite at the end of a difficult few days. It’s just a relief when someone else takes the pressure off or does the practical stuff for you.
From time to time, we may contact you by email, phone and post to keep you updated on our work and ways you can support us. You can change the way you hear from us at any time by emailing us at office@campsimcha.org.uk or calling us on 020 8202 9297. To help us to work more efficiently, we may analyse your information to make sure you receive the most relevant communications. This may include using publicly available information. You can ask us to stop this at any time, by contacting us using the above details. You can read more about how we use your information in our privacy policy.
