The Send Dynamic

Looking after a family with special educational needs and/or disabilities can be challenging, and struggling to get the right help in place for them at school can be overwhelming. Finding help and understanding can sometimes feel impossible. It can also be especially difficult to prioritise your own needs as a parent when you are so busy working hard to get help for your children.

 Feelings of isolation are exacerbated for parents who can struggle to access support taking place in person during term time, especially if their child is out of school awaiting placement. We will offer online and in person sessions to enable parents to access the courses.

 Looking After You Too was created to help parents carve out some time for themselves to focus on their own mental health and well-being. Looking After You Too is a weekly skills-based mental health and well-being programme for parents of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) to build resilience, reduce anxiety, and overcome past negative experiences.

This 8-week skills-based course with therapy content is led by a qualified psychotherapist/counsellor with lived experience as a parent of children with additional needs. Parents are supported to share experiences and learn skills to help move forward alongside other parents in a safe confidential space. We want parents to finish the Looking After You Too course feeling validated, recognised, uplifted and more positive.

 Emotional education: for parents/carers/people around a child/young person

 Parents will have opportunities to explore how their experiences have made them feel and impacted on their health and mental health. Looking After You Too will offer strategies and techniques for parents that will benefit the whole family. Looking at important concepts such as co-regulation.

‍General anxiety

Parents who access Looking After You Too will be learning new skills and strategies for anxiety management and for building resilience. They will be exploring ways to break negative thought patterns and the cycle of negative belief.

Inclusion of vulnerable groups: home educated, excluded, disadvantaged backgrounds

Parents accessing our free advice services and online peer groups are struggling because their child or young person is out of education, either awaiting suitable placement or because the placement has broken down. These parents feel unsupported and isolated.

Social Isolation: lack of regular social contact‍

Parents who access Looking After You Too will benefit from a chance to connect with people who understand and have shared experiences. Forming new friendships and a source of peer support by coming to the group.

100% parents who completed our most recent Looking After You Too Derby course were able to reduce their overall anxiety levels. By the end of the course parents reported being on average nearly half as anxious as when they started. Tips and techniques covered by the course have lasting impact “the worry tree has changed my life for the better and I will use this going forward”. “I found the programme very helpful, meeting other parents in the same situation as me”.

 Why are we crowdfunding?

The SEND Dynamic C.I.C. wishes to secure £5K to run 4 Looking After You Too programmes for parents of children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) living in Derby and Derbyshire. To benefit approximately 48 individual parents.

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