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This tells the story of people , mostly volunteers , who have helped Karen through various charities and voluntary organisations.Top of the list because of the pleasure it gave Karen and the help she had from it is a very special service called Spectrum. Spectrum began at the Royal Free Hospital Medical School and then joined with University College and Middlesex Hospital's medical school. Its main purpose is to link medical students with families who have a disabled child.In some cases two medical students will be linked with a family especially if the child needs a lot of help and support and in other cases one medical student will be linked. We always had one, it was always a woman student and they were all wonderful.There were four ways at least in which Spectrum helped families.Firstly , they would babysit , both for the disabled child and his or her siblings or they would play with the children while their parents remained at home but got on with other things.Secondly , they would take the children out.This could be a simple outing to the park or they might get together with other medical students and their link children to go to a film or the zoo or ten pin bowling etc.Thirdly there were social events for the whole family plus the students like a barbecue in summer, a hallowe'en party , and day trips to the seaside, Theme Parks and other Grand Days Out.Fourthly, and best of all were the weekends away. 
Six or eight students and the children they were linked to would go off in a minibus for a long weekend.There were three regular venues, an adventure centre in Cornwall for children and adults with disabilities, a place in the New Forest which had a swimming pool and lots of activities and Stonehouse in Gloucestershire. At all these places the children could experience somewhere quite unlike London and in Cornwall they even went sailing and cliff-walking. Karen really enjoyed being with her link students and after more than ten years of Spectrum, we reluctantly said goodbye to our last student when Karen finished school and was ready to go to college.Firstly, the students links happen in term time so Karen would have been away when the students were available. Secondly Karen would soon be at an age where she would be older than her student link!We still keep in touch with Spectrum though. 
Karen has enjoyed several different kinds of respite care and experienced others she did not enjoy. This page is about voluntary organisations but I want to mention one statutory one here; Family Link. Family Link was paid for and organised by Social Services but it was delivered by ordinary families.For many years Karen had a very succesful link called Diana. Diana has two children , one is called Sarah and Diana used to have Karen to stay at least one weekend every month. Diana also looked after Karens friend Danny and this is a picture taken by Karen of Sarah and Danny at Diana's house one weekend. |