This month, we have a special Spotlight all about Mistley Kids Club, one of our SEND Sensation partners. Read on to hear from this amazing organisation…
The after school and holiday club was opened in 1999 to meet the childcare needs of local working families, several of whom reside in economically deprived areas. To meet the needs of working parents, the club operates from 2:30 pm to 6:30 pm during term time and from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm during the holidays. As we recognise that working parents often struggle with transportation from school to the club, we offer taxis and transportation at competitive rates.This service over the years has broadly spread into our transporting children who require respite care and short breaks from school to Kids club.
Over the last 25 years the club has grown in numbers and in the services offered to fulfil the needs of our parents and children. We offer comprehensive childcare both after school and during the school holidays and, because of the focus we place on inclusion, children of all abilities are able to enjoy the service we provide. Because we are inclusive and can accept such a wide range of needs, several of the Essex County Council Social Care Teams, including Children with Disabilities and Child Protection, regard our club as an invaluable resource and refer a significant number of children to our service.Even though we started out primarily to offer childcare this has developed hugely into a short break service. Due to our being fully inclusive our families use us for their short break, respite care and down time.
We currently have 597 children on our books, of whom 261 have diagnosed additional needs which is (43.72%) of our total, with many more awaiting diagnoses, 58 children needing 1:1 staffing care, and 4 needing 2:1. 30 of our children are Children in Care. This is the total for the regular and occasional users for both the after school and holiday club.
During the School holidays we have a theme for each day and often bring in outside entertainment for the children. We run a wide variety of activities too during the day and the children have access to all our wonderful outside space.
After school we have the same access to the outside area and still put on as many activities as possible. The children enjoy a snack every day just to get them buy until dinner time. We run a tuck shop which is extremely popular with the children too. Many families have expressed how much they appreciate the work we do which fills up with such joy to have the work we do noticed.
Our Saturday Club is for our SEND children only. We have approximately 50 attends on a Saturday once a month for a short break. This has grown and grown as so many clubs in our area have closed and families are struggling to find a short break service. One they can trust and one they know make their children a focus of the club. We now have a waiting list for the 1-1 care on a Saturday as we can only offer 14 1-1 spaces per day. We look forward to a new year of fun and more challenges.