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COUNTDOWN TO DADAFEST 6
BIGGER,
stronger and more vibrant than ever, the largest UK festival that
celebrates work of Disabled and Deaf artists returns for its 6th
incredible year. Opening with a launch event at BBC Radio
Merseyside, highlights of the festival include DaDaTastic, a new
event in conjunction with the Heroes Project. This will be an
exciting inclusive club night at the Alima Centre in Liverpool, an
accessible venue.
Ruth Gould, Creative Director of Northwest Disability Arts Forum
said:- "DaDaFest 6 will be the best yet. The programme is
packed with quality performers and artists."
Gemma Nash, DaDaFest
Officer at NWDAF, who has co-ordinated the festival for the past
three years said:- "The festival has really grown. The line
up's so varied and diverse, I'm really excited with this year".
The festival is also covering Manchester this year with venues such
as The Lowry and Royal Exchange Theatre involved. Comedian Laurence
Clark returns this year with his new show, 'Jim Fixed it for me' at
the Arts Centre in Liverpool on 25th November and at the Royal
Exchange on 9th December.
Acclaimed comedy troupe, the Nasty Girls, return with new DaDa
mayhem accompanied by a bevy of up and coming disabled performers.
Award-winning theatre group Aisle 16 join the festival to perform 'Poetry
Boyband', an accessible comedy show bringing verse to the
unversed on 8 December and International artists like deaf
performer, Ramesh Myappen and comedienne Tanyalee Davies are waiting
to entertain all in the North West.
Liverpool City Council Leader, Cllr Warren Bradley, said:-
"Once again we are delighted to be supporting Dadafest which is
going from strength to strength."
DaDaFest 6 has a huge variety of deaf culture celebration events and
a wide selection of exhibitions and art events for all ages, along
with the hugely popular Family Fun Day at Sefton Park Palm House on
Sunday 3 December. The jam-packed, vibrant programme is an absolute
must-see.
For more details, visit
www.nwdaf.co.uk and click on
Dadafest.
Being a parent isn’t always easy – can you
help?
LOCAL families
have really benefited from the help of experienced parents who have
volunteered with Home-Start Knowsley. More volunteers with parenting
experience are needed to support people who are facing difficulty
and have at least one child under 5 in the family.
A new, much valued, set of volunteers is about to finish Home-Start
Knowsley’s Training to enable them to offer support, friendship and
practical help to parents and their children in their own home, in
any way that the family finds most useful. There are more families
seeking support than volunteers and Home-Start Knowsley are urgently
seeking interested people to join in the next volunteer training
sessions, starting in January 2007.
You can gain a great deal as a volunteer with Home-Start Knowsley.
As well as training and support you can gain confidence,
satisfaction and enjoyment as well as meeting new people and
discovering new opportunities.
Volunteers come from all walks of life, are of all ages and
backgrounds and are not necessarily living in the area they are
volunteering in. To find out more about volunteering with Home-Start
Knowsley please call 0161 480 3910 or
email.
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CHILDREN IN CARE FACE 3 NEW HOMES A YEAR
LEADING
children’s charity NCH is warning that DfES figures will highlight
the alarming number of times children in care in the North West are
moved each year – with 13% moving at least 3 times in 2005.
The shocking statistics nationally show teenagers are the hardest
hit (71% are aged between 10 and 18), and NCH is warning that unless
more is done by the Government to support foster parents, the number
of children and young people living in unpredictable homes will
continue to increase.
Paul Moore, North West Director of Children’s Services at NCH,
says:- “These figures highlight the frightening number of
children in care who are being moved from pillar to post when they
should be living in the security of a safe and stable home that all
children deserve. Already the most vulnerable group of children and
young people in the country, it just isn’t realistic to expect
children in care to not be further hindered by this constant
upheaval. Although we know many local authorities are striving
to improve the situation of children and young people in care, there
is still a long way to go and the government needs to be doing much
more, to firstly, work with families to prevent children even going
in to care, and secondly, give foster parents more support and
advice to deal with the challenges of looking after these children,
especially during difficult teenage years.”
Alex Sykes, 25, a student, was put into care when he was three days
old and grew up in foster and residential care. “I craved
stability and consistency when I was in care but I didn’t really get
it. I had loads of residential and foster placements and it makes
you feel like your life is in transit, especially when you’re in a
home with others in the same position. I didn’t really start to feel
settled until I started getting support when I was leaving care. If
it hadn’t been for that I wouldn’t be doing so well today.”
NCH is hoping to see an improvement in the figures, but is calling
for the Government to focus on 3 areas in its current green paper
for children in care ‘Care Matters’, to dramatically decrease
the number of times children in are moved around.
Preventing admission to care
The priority must be to prevent children going into care in the
first place. NCH services that work intensively with families prove
that family breakdown can be avoided and keep children with their
parents and in their home.
Support for foster parents
NCH runs a number of projects to support foster parents with any
parenting issues they may have, enabling them to seek professional
guidance and support at times when they need it. At one project in
the South West, a 24 hour on call support service for foster parents
contributed to a 100% success rate within the last year, with not
one placement breaking down. The charity is calling on the
Government to provide similar support to foster parents to give them
the confidence and expertise to deal with challenging behaviour, and
decrease the number of children being moved.
Prolonged funding
NCH is calling for an overview of the way in which agencies are
given funding to find placements for children in care. Currently,
short funding periods only add to the difficulty of providing stable
homes for children and the charity wants to see the length of
funding increased to reflect the length of time the child spends in
care, enabling agencies to provide stable placements for a
beneficial amount of time. |
