The Fred Foundation Newsletter DECEMBER 2011
THE FRED FOUNDATION NEWSLETTER
Dear Friend,
As Christmas approaches, you may have been wondering what The Fred has been up to in the last year. We thought it best to let just a few of our families do the talking…
Maisy’s Mum
Our daughter is nearly 6, non-verbal and has epilepsy, autism, severe learning difficulties coupled with challenging and self-harming behaviour. The Fred Foundation saved us in two ways:
Firstly, they helped us to keep funding our home ABA education programme after we had lost at tribunal when our appeal was 6 months away This funding enabled our tutors to keep working with our daughter and to deal immediately with her challenging behaviour and self-harming until we could get her into an appropriate educational setting.
Secondly, without the Fred Foundation we would have sunk both financially and emotionally; the support and funding they provided gave us a real feeling of hope and that there was someone out there who understood what we were going through. We can never thank them enough
Happily we won our case at appeal and our local authority has been ordered to fund Maisy at a school that can meet her needs! Maisy loves school- she cannot wait to get there everyday and her progress has been astounding. Self-harming is decreasing while eye contact and social interaction is increasing
Andy’s Dad
We heard about Fred Foundation and gave them a ring. In a very knowledgeable, understanding and professional manner we got help pretty much straightaway.
Andy still has a long way to go, don’t get me wrong but it is impossible to describe the feeling we have now, it is like we have grown wings. Every day (literally) we see our son making progress: saying new words and doing new things.
Fred Foundation is a truly very special and unique charity. It transforms people’s lives, gives them hope, but the best thing about it is that it took away that horrible gutting feeling – mixture of “guilt, shame and despair” that a parent feels when they know what their autistic child needs now right now but cannot give them.
Mark’s Mum
Without the help of the Fred Foundation, there is no way we could have continued to fund his tutor to give him the amount of input he requires. You are THE ONLY people that have given us help and we have approached many. We can never thank you enough. Without this therapy, and of course a very gifted tutor, we are sure, BEYOND DOUBT, that he would be a very different boy, and as a family, life would be very different
Jake’s Mum
After the Local Education Authority suddenly removed all financial support for our son’s ABA educational funding (previously awarded after SpecEd.Needs Tribunal and High Court action) out of the blue, a little of ray of light appeared in what was becoming a bottomless pit of anxiety, despair, confusion and instability. That light is The Fred Foundation.
The charity is unique in that it supports children whose parents have lost at Tribunal, but continue to need to give their children therapy and education which the LA refuse to provide – in my case recommended by every professional that has known and worked with my son. This disregard for advice can mean that the most vulnerable in our society can be left to flounder and only have the promise of an uncertain and bleak future.
Thanks to the unwavering support of The Fred Foundation, I have been able to keep the worst worries from my son and he was protected from the dreadful truth that we had lost everything at Tribunal. Thanks to Fred he is making remarkable progress, he is achieving, developing and is able to venture into new environments. I hate to think what would have happened without Fred. Now I truly believe that he has a chance to contribute to society and hopefully experience the positive things in life that the rest of us take for granted.
Some words from a few of our families, but this last account sums up exactly what we have managed to do for all our families, provide bridging finance to support their child’s education after they have lost at a Special Educational Needs Tribunal. This enables them to appeal and fight on, in many cases at the High Court, in order to get their respective Local Education Authorities to provide an education that meets their child’s needs.
Absolutely none of this would have been possible without you so do please give yourselves a pat on the back or five.
Many friends have been busy running/climbing/walking for us and raising funds. However, with so many families crying out for our help, we have been getting through funds at an alarming rate and would love you all to speak to us if you have any kind of fundraising ideas. You can use the Justgiving site to help you with your fundraising and now their Text service – text FRED11 to 70070 to donate funds to the charity.
Some of you will still have your ears ringing from the Fred Rocks 2 gig that Duff and his friends the Telford 6, Richard Haworth and DJ Miss Feelgood held last month in South London. We are glad to say we raised £2,000 that night so a big thank you to them. Do watch our Fred Facebook page and website for upcoming photos and a YouTube link!
Easyfundraising
Well as Christmas is well and truly almost upon us it is time to remind you of the Easyfundraising site.
This is how you do it. Go onto www.easyfundraising.org.uk sign in and choose your charity to support – The Fred Foundation. Pick the retailer you want to shop at and click on their logo. You immediately go to the retailer’s site as normal and shop as normal. After you have bought something you will find you have an e mail from Easyfundraising telling you how much money you have raised for Fred. Simple!
And, now, for those of you who want to know what is happening to the boy young Fred the inspiration behind our charity! As you know his parents moved house solely for him. Happily he has been funded at school by Buckinghamshire for the last couple of years and continues to thrive. Life is just as exhausting for his family, if not more so now as puberty hits, but at least his school life is happy.
And on that note, I am so happy to leave you with a piece of really special news – a couple of days ago now, Fred, aged twelve, asked, for the very first time in his life, for a Christmas present. “New Harry Potter dvd – want it for Christmas present”, he said.
I am sure you can imagine his parents’ delight but please know also that without all your support for Fred over the last few years, he would never have got to this point. His family was able to win their fight to get him into an appropriate educational setting and therefore give him the best chance to reach his potential.
HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO YOU ALL!
FELICITY ELLACOMBE
Founder and trustee
Our accounts are available to look at on the Charity Commission’s web site www.charity-commission.gov.uk
Truest Friends…taken from Tom Bickerby’s diary in The Times
After a recent series of perceived derelictions of duty by friends, my wife and I are undertaking an audit of all our friendships. It seems that some friends are of more use than others when the going gets tough.
I don’t judge them for it. When my wife and I first became parents, I noticed that a natural gulf opens between those who have children and those who don’t, and i’m wondering whether something similar happens between those who have more problematic lives and those who sail through life untroubled by setbacks. Certainly some friends are markedly better at imagining the day-to-day pressures my wife and I are under.
Others cling to their impressions that we’re fine, based on some upbeat conversation we may have had six months ago.
Some of this is our fault. Early on we couldn’t bring ourselves to keep everyone up to date with each tribulation we were going through, partly because we didnt have the time and partly because we didn’t want Alex’s introduction to the world to be a hard-luck story.
Still it’s hard to understand why some erstwhile close friends have stopped making contact at all. Do they think we’re jinxed? Or are they convinced that we are so radically changed as people that they would no longer be able to help or cheer us up?
I’ve had this out with one or two friends whose absence I felt especially keenly. Interestingly, old friends deal with it less well than new friends. I suppose more established friendships resist adjustment because of the weight of baggage and history they bear. Old friends can feel more resentment at having the quality of their friendship questioned or being given directions regarding what is (or is not) required of them in a crisis.
I can feel some friends’ grips tighten around their perception of me. They are unwilling to let my function in their lives change, despite the colossal alteration that fate has wrought on mine. More than once, I have offloaded on someone how tough it is getting from one end of the day to the other, how exhausted my wife and I are, and their solution is to offer to take me out on a massive late-night drinking session.
The truest friends are the ones who identify what would actually help us, and sincerely offer it. We never take them up on their offers. Just feeling understood is like medicine.
Taken from About A Boy – Tom Bickerby’s diary on his son Alex, who has Down’s syndrome. This column appears in The Times Life section every Tuesday.
Where’s Jesus?
“DO NOT throw Jesus out of the window he doesn’t like it! ” Our shocked bleary- eyed, neighbour heard me shouting this at the boy this morning as a small icon of Jesus flew out of the upstairs window followed by a procession of ‘all of Daddy’s shoes’ with no laces in them (removed by him).
But i have some sympathy with him I thought - i throw Jesus figuratively out of the window on a daily basis Especially at the blackest times - which are many at the moment.
Artist in residence…
I open the cupboard and am dazzled by some sort of amazing art installation, then I quickly realise that his ripping OCD has now reached the kitchen cupboard. A beautiful sea of bare silver tin cans - but which are the tinned tomatoes I need (now!)? 5 opened and decanted tins of baked beans, tomato soup, sweet corn and kidney beans later i finally find the tomatoes…… then all the shredded coloured labels stuffed behind the skeleton-like cookery books devoid of any covers.
Very Sad…
As everyone says he is such a good looking boy. It is lovely to hear but makes me sad too. Especially when you see young girls looking at him in the street – of course he is completely unaware.
I suppose that is why they call autism the blind condition – outwardly no signs.
Fred Rocks 2
Tickets are still available for this event. See below for how to get tickets etc
Felicity
“It’s Overflowing”….great language there son
I used to think it was nice to live in a house with three loos – even though there is no room to swing a cat in here….until he decided that the next bout of repetitive behaviour would be to block all of the loos (after he has used them mind) with whole loo rolls and watch all the water and whatever else -overflow onto the various carpets. It has taken me all morning since 7am to clear up. How long it will take the carpets and ceilings to dry out i have no idea. . That’s it a house ban on all loo rolls….i must hide them all over the house and try and remember when i am sitting on the loo where i have put them!!
Send Fred a Text
You can now donate to the Fred Foundation via your phone. Text FRED11 and the amount to 70070 and that’s that!
Thanks in advance
Felicity
The Guardian – click on the link
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