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Information Day 2015

Confirmed speakers to include antenatal diagnosis and care, holiday worries, how to talk to your children about the heart, vaccines for heart kids, how to use an automatic defibrillator, and advances in surgery.

There are special sessions for dads, new parents, older children, and grown up heart kids, with stalls from other heart charities.

This is a free event, with lunch included and free parking but, as places are limited, we do ask that you live in the North West or receive care from Alder Hey or Manchester cardiac units.

For more details and booking check out the event page heartchild.info/infoday.

Thank you Smart Storage

Smart Storage have taken us on as their charity of the year  and have already raised £380 for us with a sponsored Santa Dash.

Safe Storage

We have a storage facility with the Bootle branch which is usually piled high with your donations ready for our next charity shop.  Each time we run a week’s shop we can raise over £1000 so this storage facility is vital for our fundraising.

Thank you Smart Storage

Jump Nation Bounce-a-thon

Here are our exhausted bouncers after the hour of trampolining at Jump Nation.  We had a fabulous time.

DSC_0752 banner

Robyn – in the centre – has raised over £1000 and others have raised around £500.  We’ll have a grand total when all the sponsor money has been paid in.  A huge thank you to everyone – and we can’t wait to do this again.

Thomas upside down

There was a hard game to play – spot the heart child. Sometimes the heart child was the one doing the upside-down somersaults and encouraging the unfit adults to try too!!

 

Welcome to our Patrons

We are delighted to introduce you to our new patrons – Dr Denise Kitchiner and Dr Raman Patel. These doctors have now retired, but will be familiar to so many of our families – and many of our children owe their lives to their interventions. We are honoured to have them on board. Please have a look at the patrons page on our website. https://heartchild.info/web/about/patrons.

Research into Parents’ Experiences of Administering Painful and/or Invasive Procedures

A team from the Social Policy Research Unit at the University of York, funded by WellChild, are conducting research into the administration of painful and/or invasive procedures by parents of children with long-term health conditions.  This research is running from May 2014 to October 2015 and they are looking for support from parents who may be able to provide their own experiences of this.

They would like to better understand your experiences of undertaking the procedure, being trained to do the procedure, managing your child’s reactions to the procedures, how you think undertaking these procedures affects you, your child and your family, and any support needs arising from this.

If you feel that you could help with the research, further information is available at http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/spru/research/pdf/PEAPIPinf.pdf.

Alternatively, contact Gemma Spiers on 01904 321984, or at gemma.spiers@york.ac.uk.

Sponsored Bounce

Chloe sponsor letterWe are really looking forward to the end of the month when we are having a sponsored bounce.   A local paper has been to see one of our older children who has already raised over £300 and told her story of this trip helping her to feel included rather than left out.

And here is a letter from another child, Chloe, that accompanies her sponsor form.

It’s not too late to join us on 28th March – whether you’re sponsored or not.

See heartchild.info/events

WiFi for Manchester Heart Centre

CHA have provided portable WiFi for our young people who are staying in the Heart Centre at Manchester Royal Infirmary.  It is vital for them to be able to keep in touch with their friends (and some of them even use it to send homework to school we’ve been told).  It’s expensive for them to use the hospital televisions so this is a better way for them to get online.

DSC01001Jane, Anna and Linda are delighted and have reported that one hotspot was immediately put to good use by a lad who’s needing a long stay on the ward.

Thank you to those of you who support us and enable us to make a difference.

Manchester Christmas 2014 and Disney’s #ShareTheMagic campaign

We had a lovely time at our annual Pizza with Santa’s Elves lunch at the Hilton Manchester Airport.  The staff there are fabulous and the food was even better than last year.  We were very grateful to In Kind Direct and Disney’s Share the Magic Campaign for donating our gorgeous Mickey Mouse cuddly figures.

More Mickey Mouse toys were taken to the cardiac outpatient department at Manchester Children’s Hospital to give to any family who visited during the Christmas period.

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Thank you from Manchester Children’s Hospital

We’ve received a thank you from the play team at Ward 85 Manchester Children’s Hospital.

PS3 games“Thank you so much for the £100. With this I have been able to buy cheaper up to date games.  Thanks Jo play specialist x”

It’s the little things that we do which can make someone’s stay in hospital just that bit easier.  Thanks to everyone who has helped us fund raise this year.

(And if Santa has been very kind to you do you have some old games you could donate to the ward?)

 

Visit to see Concorde

On Sat 13th Sept we went to see Concorde at Runway Visitors park at Manchester Airport. It was a lovely warm afternoon and we met at 12.30 ready for our 12.50 tour. The size of Concorde was amazing to see.

We had the services of a guide to take us on board and tell us the history of Concorde. Some of our members even sat in the same seat as the Queen has done on her previous trips on Concorde. Other members got to sit where the Duke himself also sat when on state business with the Queen. They each like to have a window seat. We then went underneath Concorde and were amazed at the size of the wheels, they are huge, as are the engines.

After this we then went on a DC10 and had a 2hr tour of it and other planes. The staff told the story of the various jobs around the airport, e.g. firemen and women. The children then did some role playing, playing the parts of fireman, also they were interactive with other roles such as police, captain, pilot and cabin crew. We also got to see the planes taking off including double decker planes. We finished off getting a penny press of the planes as a keep sake.

What a fabulous afternoon, which everyone enjoyed.

Thanks, Val.

We are a charity based in the North West of England in the UK and provide support to families with children with congenital or acquired heart disorders at all stages of their condition, helping them deal with the problems and challenges it brings.
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