SERVICE DETAILS
Our project will directly help 15 families and indirectly help around 200 families in Edinburgh.
We plan to provide support to parents of young people (aged 16-25) with disabilities living in Edinburgh, who have experienced a negative impact on their mental health due to the absence and/or reduction in respite services and/or day care provision for their young person during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Our project aims to improve the mental health and self-care strategies of parents in Edinburgh to help them recover from a highly stressful period and to build their resilience in coping with their own anxiety and their young person’s anxiety. The abrupt stop to respite services and day care provision in March 2020 resulted in hundreds of parents in Edinburgh living with their young person with a disability for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, without any support. A number of services were resumed in 2021, however many parents continue to struggle in 2022 as respite services for parents of young disabled people in Edinburgh have been permanently withdrawn.
Many of the parents are overwhelmed, exhausted and experiencing mental health problems, with no time or space for them to reflect on their own needs. We aim to create a safe space and protected time so parents can recognise and develop self-care strategies to improve their mental health, these might include using touch, aroma therapy, sound, walking and mindfulness.
This project will be proactive with the aim of preventing families reaching the point of crisis by giving parents practical and meaningful support when they need it most.
We plan to provide 45 mental health self-care and therapeutic massage sessions in Edinburgh over a period of eight months in 2022. 15 Parents will be offered three sessions with a highly skilled, registered therapist specialised in trauma treatment and supporting vulnerable people.
The therapist will provide anonymous feedback to our charity so we can evaluate the impact and capture the learning to support a wider group of parents. The strategies identified by parents will inform the development of a video as an online resource for hundreds of parents across Edinburgh who are struggling with their mental health and face the challenge of caring for a young person with a disability in a time of restricted resources.
For further information, please get in touch.
