Governance Update

We are already one third of the way through 2023 and we thought it is time for a governance update.

The Trustees have continued to work behind the scenes overseeing service delivery, monitoring compliance with our legal duties, manging risk, reviewing our policies and of course ensuring we have the financial resources needed and are spending them in the best interests of our service users. We have introduced some key performance indicators to help us monitor our impact and have started to collect some additional diversity data to ensure that we are meeting our duties to ensure equality, diversity and inclusion within the charity.

We have six Trustees including our newest appointment, Huw, who is taking over the treasurer role from Rachel. Rachel has supported the Board with robust financial monitoring and reporting over the past 5 years and we are grateful for her ongoing support and excellent handover to Huw.

Following some successful fundraising at the end of 2022 and early 2023 we have set a balanced budget for 2023 which supports the ongoing delivery of our existing services and provides some scope for expansion. At our team Away Day last September we heard the views and ideas of our employee and volunteer team and service users which encouraged us to look for continual improvement in our service offer and incremental additions to it.

Our ongoing review and development of our strategy has resulted in us amending our constitution, with Charity Commission approval, to extend the age range of the young people with Down Syndrome we can support, up to age 25. This aligns with our partnership with Hertfordshire Libraries and gives us scope for other future services as our young people get older.

Recent new services have included our EHCP Support service and Resources into Homes and we hope that these will further enable and empower parents to secure and provide the best possible support for their children.

The Trustees continue to look further ahead into 2024 and beyond to ensure we remain financially viable for the years to come and further fundraising and grant applications are an embedded part of our planning. We are also conscious that rising costs affect those using our services and we remain committed to keeping costs low and also ensuring free access to all of our services for those where cost is a barrier to them participating.

As ever we would love to hear from you if you have any questions, comments or feedback on any of our services. Please do message us or email us at info@dsachieve.org

Exciting new job opportunity at DS Achieve!

• Are you passionate about making a positive difference for families with a child or young person with SEND?

• Are you a service and people leader, with a history of high performance and fantastic customer focus…? And you also appreciate the importance of attention to detail and you take personal pride in producing high quality and accurate work?

• Are you looking for a senior role on a part time, term time only basis?

We are looking to appoint a highly effective Operations Manager who will be responsible for implementing the day-to-day management and administration of the organisation to deliver high quality services for our service users, with a start date of September 2023.

If you think this could be you, click below to find out more. The deadline for applications is Monday 22nd May 2023.

New service for Early Years children with Down Syndrome!

Following on from our highly successful Resources into Schools programme for children at schools or nursery, we are excited to announce Resources into Homes, a new bespoke service which provides direct training from a Specialist DS Teacher to parents, on how to use a specialist resource to enable your child to achieve maximum progression with their learning in their Early Years.

For more information and to apply for our Resources into Homes programme, visit our page on services for Early Years children here: For Early Years children (0-5 years) — Empowering Families, Fulfilling Potential. (dsachieve.org)

Generous donation from Hitchin Town Youth FC

At DS Achieve, we would like to say a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone at Hitchin Town Youth FC for their fantastic fundraising for World Down Syndrome Day 2023.

We have received an amazing £250 donation into our account, of which every penny will go towards our work with families and professionals to enable children and young people with Down Syndrome to fulfil their potential.

Special thanks to Stacey Murdoch, who organised the event to raise funds and awareness. We are very grateful!

DS Achieve calls out for votes to get a share of Tesco’s Community Grants fund

DS Achieve are delighted to announce that we have been selected in the customer vote for a Tesco Community Grant Fund!

This scheme gives community projects like us grants of up to £1,500. This means that, commencing the first week of April, you can use your blue tokens to vote for DS Achieve every time you shop at local Tesco stores.

You will be able to vote for us at the following stores:

• Harpenden Tesco Express

• London Colney Tesco Express

• Jersey Farm St Albans Tesco Express

• Harpenden Luton Road Tesco Express

• Wheathampstead Tesco Express

• St Albans Beech Road Tesco Express

• St Albans Market Tesco Metro

• St Alban Hatfield Road Tesco Express

To vote, you will need to make a purchase of any value within a store. You will receive one token per transaction and if you use self-service tills you may help yourself to one token after shopping. On your way out simply drop your token in the DS Achieve slot!

If you (or somebody you know) are local to these areas please take the time to support DS Achieve when you shop.

www.tesco.com/#communitygrantscommunitygrants

On 21st March we will be celebrating World Down Syndrome Day 2023!

Join us to celebrate WDSD 2023!

On 21st March each year, World Down Syndrome Day, we celebrate Down Syndrome (DS) to raise awareness about what it means to have DS and the huge potential that people with DS have.

The 21st day of the third month was chosen to signify the three copies of the 21st chromosome which cause DS and World Down Syndrome Day is a great opportunity to get talking about DS, dispel myths, raise general awareness (and funds!) and celebrate.

This year, we have created a colouring sheet for use at home and in schools, as a simple way to get the conversation started. We are sending it out to schools with further information about WDSD for education staff to use in assemblies or in the classroom.

If you would like to download a copy, you can find the DS Achieve colouring sheet here:

DS ACHIEVE WDSD RESOURCE

For more information about WDSD 2023, here are some useful links:

Down Syndrome International: With Us Not For Us - World Down Syndrome Day

• Schools Guide

• Down Syndrome explained

WDSD 2023 – Down Syndrome UK

World Down Syndrome Day | United Nations

My Voice - Join the Youth Advisory Panel

Are you, or do you know, a young person with Down Syndrome who wants to take up this exciting opportunity?

As part of the My Voice volunteering programme, Hertfordshire Libraries is looking to create an inclusive and diverse panel of young people aged between 14 -24 years old, to empower Youth Voice and to advise on services and activities for their peers.

A key focus for the Youth Advisory Panel initially will be to shape the exciting new project My Voice, a youth volunteering offer, generously supported by Arts Council England, in partnership with DS Achieve, Herts Sports Partnership and The OLLIE Foundation.

You don’t have to be passionate about reading or even a library user, but you do need to be passionate about representing young people’s views, pushing for change and better opportunities in libraries for young people.

This is a voluntary role but any reasonable travel and/or expenses incurred will be covered by Hertfordshire Libraries.

What’s in it for me?

• Ensure young people’s voices are at the heart of Hertfordshire Libraries services

• Be part of creating recruitment campaigns to encourage young people to become My Voice Volunteers at their local library and develop youth-led events and activities

• Get involved in opportunities to meet other young people and work together on the exciting and innovative My Voice, the new youth volunteering project for which DS Achieve is a partner

What will I have to do?

You need to be a Hertfordshire resident aged 14-24 years old who can commit to the Youth Advisory Panel for approximately 12 months.. 

Hertfordshire Libraries will support reasonable adjustments for anyone who attends the panel who has Down Syndrome.

As a Youth Advisory Panel member, with support from the My Voice Project Officer/Senior Leadership Team mentor, you will need to:

• read any information provided to you before Youth Advisory Panel meetings

• attend a monthly meeting (either in person or online via Teams)

• work together with other Youth Advisory Panel members during meetings or via email

• support the development of the My Voice youth volunteering project

• advise on the direction of the work of Hertfordshire Libraries and how to best engage with young people

• work with with library staff to improve services for young people

• give support to Hertfordshire Libraries, acting as Ambassadors for the Service

• showcase work achieved by the Advisory Panel and My Voice Volunteers internally and via established communication platforms, e.g., social media

The next Youth Advisory Panel meeting will be held on:

• DATE: Thursday 23 February 2023, 5pm - 6.30pm

• VENUE: Performing Arts/Central Stocks Unit, Hertfordshire Libraries, Centrapark, Bessemer Road, Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, AL7 1HT

To find out more and to express your interest in joining the panel please contact Hannah Pegg at Hannah.Pegg@hertfordshire.gov.uk.

Thank you for all your support in 2022. We couldn't have done it without you!

We are so grateful to all our supporters - the families we work with, our grant funders, our social media fans, and HUGE thanks to our employee team, our trustees, our Advisory Teachers and our volunteers - you are all WONDERFUL!

A quick summary of DS Achieve’s achievements in 2022:

• our Little Achievers pre-school programme, funded by The National Lottery and delivered by Hannah, Sandra, Rachael and our volunteer Fin (who left in autumn), supported 17 families over the year.

• our Young Achievers programme for school-age children and young people, funded by Children in Need and delivered by Avril (now on mat leave), Jo, Zohra (who left in July), Charlotte N and Charlotte L plus a sizeable volunteer team, have worked with 29 different children with most children returning each term.

• 98 bookings onto our training events during 2022, which included Number Sense, DSEI Reading and Language Intervention,, Transition to Special School & Transport, Supporting Children with Down Syndrome in Education and Visual Development. Thank you to Helen Long, Gillian W-T, Anne Gullick and Dr Maggie Woodhouse in delivering these courses on our behalf.

• our new service, Resource Packs into School, supported 14 different children in 2022! This combines bespoke Specialist Down Syndrome Advisory Teacher advice to schools and nurseries combined with the delivery of a practical resource to help teachers better support individual children with Down Syndrome specific aspects of their learning.

• our Empowerment Group combined two social events (Pots of Art and an ‘Ultimate Night-in’ fashion evening) which were attended by 19 parents, with a programme of Facebook Lives which were viewed approx. 400 times over the year.

• We rounded off all things social with a fantastic pre-Christmas party for the whole family and had 20 families attend.

• In addition to events, we have had great success with raising awareness, sharing knowledge, information and positivity throughout the year.  We’ve issued 12 newsletters to 194 parents and professionals, kept busy on social media and now have 588 followers of our Facebook page, 201 parent carers in our Facebook community group, and kept the website up to date which is now receiving an average of 470 unique visitors each month. We’ve also attended some community events to spread the word about DS Achieve and all the services we provide, increasing awareness and building relationships locally.

• At the end of the year, we launched our partnership with Hertfordshire Libraries to create volunteering opportunities for young people with Down Syndrome. Watch this space for more info as this project develops!

THANK YOU all for your support, hard work, funding, cheerleading, Facebook ‘likes’ and general love. We are very grateful and we are looking forward to carrying on delivering these services to you in 2023.

St Albans Bach Choir chooses DS Achieve as Christmas Carol Concert charity

On Saturday 10th December, we were delighted to attend the St Albans Bach Choir Christmas Carol Concert, as the choir’s chosen charity. The choir performs regularly in the Cathedral and Abbey Church of St Alban, often supported by professional musicians, and Saturday’s concert was a sell out event! Representing DS Achieve was Michelle Bolton (Head of Ops), Gillian Warwick-Thompson (Chair of Trustees) and Abbie Hollick (Trustee - and SABC choir member).

Among the beautiful songs performed by the choir, Michelle took to the stage, armed with a microphone, to tell the audience a bit about DS Achieve - who we are, what we’re about, and what we deliver for the DS community, and why. Admittedly, she was a bit nervous, but thankfully it seemed to go ok!

We were grateful for the opportunity to share our messages on the huge potential of people with Down Syndrome and hopefully also bust a few myths, and the cherry on top was the £310 donated by the concert audience. Every penny will go into the services we deliver and will make a difference.

A huge thank you to St Albans Bach Choir - and to Abbie and fellow choir member, Rebecca Turner (mum to one of our Young Achievers, Alice), for nominating us.

Family fun at the DS Achieve festive party!

We had an absolute blast on Sunday at our family get together!

Thank you to everyone who joined - it was great to catch up with so many of the families we work with and to be able to bring everyone together for some festive cheer.

The Hilltop Community Centre thankfully offers a great space, so we were able to pack in lots for everyone to enjoy:

• soft play and a sensory area

• a crafts area to make reindeer food and decorate gingerbread men

• an activity area with giant Connect 4, Ball in the Bucket, Ring the Bull and Splat the Rat games

• a ‘selfie’ area with Instagram frame and lots of props

• the dance floor, complete with disco ball and festive pop playlist, played at a low sound level

• the refreshments station with squash and treats, where members of our team served tea, coffee and hot choc (with marshmallows!) to parents

We were incredibly lucky to have professional photographer, Stephanie Belton, capturing the fun and special family moments. Check out her brilliant photos of the event to see what we got up to.

We’d like to say a HUGE thanks to the team that made it happen:

• the brilliant volunteer team on the day: Ariella, Charlotte N, Teresa, Jake, Charlotte B and Max

• and an even more ENORMOUS thanks to Jo Walker, our wonder Events Coordinator, for planning, organising, project managing and delivering the event. It wouldn’t have happened without Jo, and we are now worried about how high she has raised our standards for social events. You can never leave now, Jo!

We want to acknowledge and thank Hertfordshire County Council for their funding contribution towards the event. It was very much appreciated.

If there is anyone we don’t see beforehand, we hope you have a wonderful Christmas.