Spectrum is beyond delighted to announce we have received over £73k funding from the Coronavirus Community Support Fund, distributed by National Lottery Community Fund to enable us to deliver our Digital Reach project. There are not many times that we are lost for words, but this is very much one of them. Thank you so much to the Government for making this possible and helping us make a difference.
The project was designed in the year before Covid; although unknown to us at the time; it would help us shape a fantastic response to Covid when it emerged and assist situations the families we support face. The project centres around Digital Reach and supporting families regardless of their geography to us.
The strategy allows us to implement the following areas in quick succession methodically, providing a digital accessibility response to the pandemic and expanding these service areas for years to come. Amongst the achievements that we will deliver for the benefit of those we support are the following areas:
– Expansion of our overall volunteering capacity across different areas
– Implementation of three paid part-time roles
– Increased volunteering and support capacity online and paths of support accessibility for families
– Extension of our hours of coverage and services over mobile access
– Provision of a Live Chat service to quickly engage with our teams, alongside Zoom functionality.
– Provision of a dedicated support team for the children and families that we support, including areas of EHCP in schools, forms, mental health guidance and disability benefit advice
– Deliver Spectrum TV as a YouTube channel – providing visual instructions for our services, event information and SEND content, alongside existing methods.
– Increasing our service partners in the areas of paediatrics, family support, clinical and law
– Implementing an expanded technology roll out across software, video, audio and media to support the team in collaboration for the coming years
– Embedding technology into our sessions to enable our work to be easily shown to new families joining and capture the successes of the children we work with
– Deliver two secure Minecraft servers for dedicated access to children with additional needs
– Roll out of an Arts Award programme for qualification and accreditation in the Arts, harnessing creativity and imagination
Ongoing, using a project management strategy, we continue developing and building on all aspects of our service for enhanced digital support and engagement. This ensures we gain the most from the implementations that we have made and the technologies we are using, both for now and in our preparations for life after “lockdown”.
We cannot thank the National Lottery Community fund team enough for their investment in our work, the time they have spent with us and their interest in our long term plans, supporting families of children with Autism, additional needs and disabilities. It makes an incredible difference to what we can achieve and how we can support children and family units. In addition to this, we continued to be humbled by the passion shown by the partners and community foundations we work with to complement this at every turn.
Elated, grateful and excited for the future.
Spectrum is a multi-award winning, parent-led charity, providing events and support for families of children with Autism, additional needs, learning difficulties and disabilities. We are family-focused, passionate about inclusion and supporting Special Education Needs & Disabilities (SEND).