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We are looking for adult volunteers to help at Young Achievers

We are looking for enthusiastic volunteers (age 18+) for our Young Achievers programme, to support our Group Leader and Assistant Leader at our weekly groups for school aged children and young people with Down Syndrome.

Young Achievers runs weekly on a Saturday afternoon in Welwyn Garden City, during term time only.

Our ideal candidate has experience of working with children with SEND and working as part of a team to support activities suitable for a range of ages.

Training and support will be given. Volunteers need to be 18 or over.

If you are interested and would like to find out more, please read the role profile here and get in touch with your CV and the reasons why you’re interested in the role on info@dsachieve.org.

We are recruiting a Young Achievers Group Leader!

We are sad to share the news that Avril Prosser, our fantastic Young Achievers Group Leader, will be moving on from DS Achieve. We will be very sorry to lose her from the team and we wish her the very best for the future.

Now, we are recruiting for an inspiring and highly motivated Young Achievers Group Leader and are keen to hear from anyone who thinks that they could do a fantastic job!

You will plan, manage and deliver a weekly, term-time only social and developmental activity group for school age children/young people with Down Syndrome.  You’ll run the group, manage the team, organise the sessions and deliver awesome activities to help children with Down Syndrome develop their life skills and social communication.

  • Contract: Initial 3 month Fixed Term Contract, with a view to renewing for the next academic year

  • Hours: 7.25 hours per week, term time only, for 10 weeks per term

    • 4 hours on a Saturday afternoon, 2pm - 6pm

    • 3.25 hours admin time, to be worked flexibly between Monday to Friday 

  • Start date: Monday 15th April 2024

If you are interested in applying for the position and want to find out more, please read the role profile here and get in touch with your CV and the reasons why you’re interested in the role on info@dsachieve.org.

The application deadline is Friday 1st March. Please expect to receive a response to your application once the deadline has passed.

Family fun at the DS Achieve 5th birthday party!

We’re still buzzing from all the fun we had with so many of you on Sunday at our 5th birthday party!

A massive thank you to everyone who joined us - it was wonderful to see so many of the families we work with and to be able to bring our fabulous community together for a celebration.

The Jersey Farm Community Centre provided the perfect setting for the afternoon, and here’s a glimpse of the fantastic activities we packed in for everyone to enjoy:

  • soft play

  • a separate quieter sensory room

  • crafts galore - from gingerbread decorating to colouring to planting nasturtium seeds in beautifully decorated plant pots

  • an activity zone featuring giant Connect 4, Ball in the Bucket, Ring the Bull and Splat the Rat games and the very popular Inflatable Ring Toss

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

  • a raffle to win a fantastic hamper of biscuits, kindly donated by Burton's Biscuits

  • the refreshments station with squash and treats, where our team served tea, coffee and hot chocolate (with the all important cream and marshmallows!) to parents

A special shout-out to the talented professional photographer, Stephanie Belton, who captured the fun and family moments with her brilliant photos. Take a look at her incredible shots of the event to see what we got up to.

A colossal THANK YOU to the fantastic volunteer team who helped make it all happen on the day: Alhaam, Ariella, Charlotte N, Giovanna, Helena, and Kambiz.

We would also like to acknowledge and thank an anonymous donor who very kindly provided funds so we could celebrate our 5th birthday with you all. We truly appreciate their generosity.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on the party. Please share your feedback - whether it's your family highlights or suggestions to make our next event even better - in an email to: info@dsachieve.org

Could you be one of our new Trustees?

DS Achieve is on the lookout for new Trustees to join our team in 2024, and you could be the perfect candidate!

By becoming a Trustee, you can:

  • make a difference to children and young people with DS and their families

  • influence what we do at DS Achieve and how we do it

  • be part of a passionate and committed team

We are particularly keen to receive applications from parents and/or siblings of a child with DS or another SEND condition.

If you are passionate about making a difference and would like to volunteer some of your time and skills to a great charity, then this could be the role for you.

A full role description and more information can be found via the button below. We are committed to equality and diversity and welcome applicants from all backgrounds.

To apply, please send a relevant CV to info@dsachieve.org. For further information or to discuss any aspects of the role, please contact our Chair of Trustees, Gillian Warwick-Thompson, either by email as above or by phone 07826 086511.

Resources into Homes Spring 2024 - Number and Memory

We’re happy to share with you that the topic for our Resources into Homes service this Spring term is Number and Memory.

Resources into Homes offers:

  • an assessment of your child’s developmental stage in the topic based on information you provide

  • a recommendation for a specialist resource (which DS Achieve will buy for you if you are in receipt of income-related benefits)

  • direct training from a Specialist DS Teacher to parents on how to use the recommended 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 service, visit our page on services for Early Years children here: For Early Years children (0-5 years) — Empowering Families, Fulfilling Potential. (dsachieve.org)

Thank you for all your support in 2023!

We are so grateful to all our incredible supporters - the families we work with, our grant funders, our social media followers, and MASSIVE thanks to our employee team, our trustees, our Advisory Teachers and our volunteers - you are all truly AMAZING!

A quick summary of DS Achieve’s achievements in 2023:

  • Our Little Achievers pre-school programme, funded by The National Lottery and delivered by Hannah, Sandra, Rachael and Eve (who joined us in May), supported 20 families over the year.

  • Our Young Achievers programme for school-age children and young people, funded by Children in Need and delivered by Avril (who re-joined us from maternity leave in September), Jo (who provided Avril’s maternity cover), Charlotte N and Charlotte L plus a sizeable volunteer team, have worked with 29 different children with most children returning each term.

  • Our Resources into School service, supported 26 different children in 2023! This combines bespoke Specialist Down Syndrome Advisory Teacher advice to schools and nurseries combined with the delivery of a practical resource or personalised training to help teachers better support individual children with Down Syndrome specific aspects of their learning.

  • Our brand new service, Resources into Homes, was launched this year and has had a total of 11 bookings so far. This is a bespoke service for early years children which provides direct training from a Specialist Down Syndrome Advisory Teacher, to parents, on how to use a specialist resource to enable your child to achieve maximum progression with their learning at this early stage.

  • We're proud to say that our partnership with Hertfordshire Libraries to create volunteering opportunities for young people with Down Syndrome has flourished in 2023. We've delivered (and continue to deliver) specialist training via our Down Syndrome Advisors to a large number of the library staff in Hertfordshire to enable them to fully support young people with Down Syndrome to volunteer, and we now have 5 successful placements underway at libraries around the county.

  • 79 bookings onto our training events during 2023, which included how to ‘Get the Most out of your EHCP Annual Review’, a two part 'What to do when things don't go to plan' EHCP Training Workshop, Dental Care for Children and Young People with Down Syndrome, Supporting Children with Down Syndrome in Education and Supporting Siblings of Children with SEND. Thank you to Helen Long, Tracey Allen, Jigna Patel and the team at Sibs in delivering these courses on our behalf.

  • Our Empowerment Group held two social events (Meet and Eat and Wreath Making) which were attended by a total of 20 parents, and delivered a programme of Facebook Lives which were viewed approx. 250 times over the year.

  • Behind the scenes, we said a fond farewell to Bhav, our wonderful Operations Coordinator, and welcomed in Fiona, our new Operations Manager.

  • In addition to events, we have had huge success with raising awareness, sharing knowledge, information and positivity throughout the year. We’ve issued 16 newsletters to 281 parents and professionals, kept busy on social media and now have 764 followers of our Facebook page, 227 parent carers in our Facebook community group, and kept the website up to date which is now receiving an average of 405 unique visitors each month. We’ve also participated in community events to spread the word about DS Achieve and highlight our range of services, raising awareness and building valuable local relationships.

  • We're now planning to kick off 2024 with a celebration! We’re planning a party for the whole family to celebrate our 5th birthday. It will be held on Sunday 28th January, 2-4pm, and tickets are available now!

THANK YOU all for your support, hard work, funding, cheerleading, Facebook ‘likes’ and all-around love. We are incredibly grateful and we are looking forward to carrying on delivering these services to you in 2024.

Spring term classes are now open for booking!

Our bookings for next term’s Little Achievers are now open and we’ve had so much fun this past autumn term.

Little Achievers welcomed the return of our fantastic private Occupational Therapist, Lyndsay, from maternity leave. She was blown away by the progression in our families and was excited to meet all the new faces!

We have tried messy play with paint to produce beautiful works of art for the Festival of Light in St Albans and Christmas cards for taking home. We also had not so messy play with shredded paper which went down extremely well!

Every week has been filled with fun, laughter and chat, with many new milestones on display! 

Booking link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/little-achievers-spring-24-tickets-760551709637

Bookings for the Spring term at Young Achievers are also now open, there are two booking links: one for the younger age group and one for the older age group so please check carefully when booking.

Young Achievers have enjoyed a jam-packed autumn term of games, songs and listening activities. We have been focusing on the essential skills for effective communication and attentive listening. We practiced the art of joint attention through the attention autism bucket and turned our listening ears on with sound bingo.

We each made a paper plate portrait to develop our self awareness and created musical shakers to help follow instructions to music. We have enjoyed playing parachute games, listening stories, obstacle courses, and a wealth of turn taking and social games, like giant snakes and ladders and volleyball.

It has been a brilliant 10 weeks of building friendships, celebrating our successes and practising pro-social behaviours. To wrap up the term on a festive note, each child and young person received a well-deserved certificate, a well-done gift, and enjoyed a Christmas themed karaoke party.

Booking link for the Younger Age Group: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/young-achievers-social-skills-group-yr-r-to-yr-6-spring-24-tickets-760561127807?

Booking link for the Older Age Group: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/young-achievers-social-skills-group-yr-7-to-yr-1213-spring-24-tickets-763876042807?

Trustee News

We’re delighted to welcome Tina Guagenti-Birkin as the newest Trustee to join our Trustee team.

To find out more about Tina and the rest of our Trustees, check out our ‘About Us’ section: https://dsachieve.org/our-trustees.

As we welcome Tina, we'd also like to take a moment to say a big thank you to Anna Crispin. After two years as a Trustee, Anna is stepping down from her role, her expertise and knowledge of the education sector have been an invaluable asset to our team.

Welcome to the trustee team, Tina and thank you, Anna!

‘My Voice’ - Volunteering Opportunities for Young People

'My Voice' is a two-year project which provides opportunities for young people aged 14-24 years old to join the Hertfordshire Libraries youth volunteer network in libraries across the county.

We are delighted to let you know that we have delivered (and continue to deliver) specialist training via our DS Advisors to a large number of the library staff in Hertfordshire to enable them to support volunteers with Down Syndrome. The majority of Hertfordshire libraries are now ready and keen to support young people with volunteering opportunities with them.

We have two successful placements currently underway and would love to place some more young people into Hertfordshire libraries. This project provides valuable learning and development opportunities, including life skills and practical work experience.

To find out more and to enquire about a volunteering placement, visit our page For Young People.

Before you go...

Please consider making a small donation to support DS Achieve.