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The North East has some of the highest numbers of children with special educational needs and disability in the country, and families raising disabled children face, on average, additional costs of over £320 per month – some as high as £1,000 per month. Mental health and emotional well-being are at crisis point for children and their families.
The Sunshine Fund is a small North East charity whose mission is to provide specialist and adapted equipment to disabled children and young people living in the region, enriching their quality of life in ways not supported by the NHS or local authorities, and providing an inclusive future for them and their families.
The charity’s vision is a North East where every disabled child and young person has access to the specialist equipment, support, and opportunities they need to live with dignity, independence, and joy, and where our regional community unites in support of every child’s right to a fulfilling childhood.
Another local organisation that shares this regional pride and community ethos is The Harrison Foundation, a privately ran charitable foundation founded by David and Sylvia Harrison and their family, with the intention to help make a direct and measurable difference.
Earlier this year, the charity reached out to the foundation with evidence that disabled children in the region are being shut out of school, play, community life and independence because essential mobility, sensory, communication and adaptive equipment is unavailable or unaffordable.
They provided the Harrison Foundation with a list of items of specialist equipment that had been applied for by local families, and subsequently, they contributed over £27,000 to deliver the round as quickly as possible.
Thanks to this generous donation, the foundation directly supported 30 individuals and 1 school, consisting of 472 pupils. This made a huge difference to local families, and meant that The Sunshine Fund were able to unite North East kids with the equipment they need, almost immediately.
One of these children was 2-year-old Florence Joan Wales from South Tyneside, who has Aicardi Syndrome, which means she has absent or underdeveloped tissue connecting the left and right halves of the brain. She also has epilepsy, blindness in her left eye, developmental delay, and is PEG fed.
Florence didn’t have anywhere comfortable to sit with her family. She has an NHS-funded chair, but this is a working chair that means her body is constantly active to build strength, which means it isn’t comfortable to be sat in all the time.
Due to her limited mobility, she couldn’t be left on the family sofa as she would slip down, so the family applied for a specialist seat: the Chilli Bean Chair, costing £1,839.
The seat provides comfort and security, so Florence has somewhere safe and to sit back and relax like every child should be able to. It gives her parents peace of mind as they’re not having to move her all the time, and it means if they need to grab something from the other room they’re not stressed that she’ll slip down.
The Chilli Bean chair has made a significant difference to the whole family, but it comes at a price.
When you consider the cost of a standard bean bag that only costs £20, it highlights the very real inequalities that disabled households face, just to meet a standard of living that can often be taken for granted.
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