Helping young patients enjoy new experiences with special residential trips
Thanks to your donations, we’ve been able to continue to support the NUH Youth Service in providing special residential trips for patients being looked after by Nottingham Children’s Hospital.
Donna Hilton, Youth Service Manager, told us about the impact these residentials have.
“Every week, we run the Nottingham Children’s Hospital Youth Group, which the Charity has helped support over the years. We have around 15 to 30 young people attending on a weekly basis, depending on exams.
Our annual residentials used to be in Pembrokeshire, but we’ve recently moved to Lea Green in Derbyshire as it provides more accessible facilities for our young people. We put a letter out to those who we support and then they apply for a position on our residential. We try to ensure that we offer a place to those who haven’t experienced a residential before, but we do get a few that get to experience the adventure two or three times due to when they become part of our programme.
If we are struggling to fill space, we offer it to those who have been before that may need a boost of independence whilst undergoing their treatments, but generally our Youth Club members will fill those spaces.
The residential is set around outdoor education. What’s great about Lea Green is that it’s accessible. They have caves which residents can scramble down and is wheelchair friendly. They also have access to wheelchair abseiling and paddleboarding which ensures that no one is left out.
On day one, we let the residents get to know each other as they might go to the same clinics but have never met. We also have a few people who have never been away from home before so they might feel a bit homesick or anxious, we want them to feel comfortable and confident during their stay.
I always remember, a young person that didn’t want anyone to know that they’d had a transplant, and I remember waking up to noise at 2am, walking into the common room and they are showing someone their scar and talking about having a transplant. It’s so powerful these conversations that come out and they make friends for life which is lovely when some of them are unable to attend school due to their treatments.
Everyone just gets it. They don’t feel different from others as we go through all the medication times and make sure that those that need them in their bags don’t forget them and they don’t feel the odd one out as they are actually the majority not the minority on these trips.
Young people come on these trips and really push themselves. They might come in homesick, anxious and shy but leave with an abundance of friends, life skills, the ability to manage their treatments and medications. It builds independence which is priceless.
It’s also lovely to see them develop year after year. This year, we’re hoping to take two peer mentors who have been through the programme and will offer support to the residents and show them what their future may look like.
We like the residents to be able to medically look after themselves as much as possible but sometimes we have dialysis nurses come with us if we have a young person who requires a regular dialysis.
That’s one of the great things about being local, is that we’re not too far away from the hospital and parents so if a young person is unable to commit to a week due to medical conditions, they can come for the day or a few days without missing out on all the fun.”
This year’s residential welcomed young people from across Nottingham Children’s Hospital who experienced abseiling, paddle boarding, canoeing, climbing and much more. These activities allowed them to experience adventure without the worry of their illness.
We’re so grateful that your donations to the Youth Service allow us to continue to provide these activities. If you would like to support more of these projects, please click the button below.