About the Special Educational Needs Families Support Group.

The charity was set up in 1991 by parents of children with disabilities and additional needs. Our main focus was to reassure other parents that they were not alone and provide them with better information relating to their children’s education.  

More recently we have begun to widen our scope to deal with adults, so if you are an adult with difficulties such as mental health problems, domestic violence or substance abuse we may also be able to help you.

We aim to provide:

• Support services to families or individuals in crisis.
• Support and guidance on where and how you can get the information you need.
• Liaison with local authorities, health workers, schools and social services.
• Conferences, workshops and training sessions for the public and professionals.
• Social events where you can meet people in the same situation as you and have some fun together.

The SENFSG resource centre provides a family room, office facilities and training room as well as access to adequate equipment and resource library.

Please know that you are not alone in your difficulties and that we understand your circumstances. If you have got this far then you are well on your way to getting the support and the guidance that you require to help make a brighter future.

Meet the team.

We are a highly skilled and dedicated team with years of both professional and personal experience.

	Marsha Marsha White is a founder of SENFSG and has an enormous amount of both professional and personal experience supporting families and children with special needs. Marsha also has extensive qualifications and experience in counselling, mediation and training for all age groups and has an encyclopaedic knowledge of local services.
	Emma Emma is our office manager and deals with all of the budgeting and administration. She specialises in working directly with young parents to ensure that they have a long term relationship with their children. She also has extensive experience dealing with young offenders and young people with mental health and substance issues and also teaches English as a foreign language (TEFL).
	Nigel   Nigel is a long standing volunteer and director of the charity and is involved in all aspects of the charity's work. He is married to Judith and has three grown up daughters who also fully support the great work carried out by the charity
	Natalie and Jill Are mother and daughter who became involved in the charity over 10 years ago raising awareness of special educational needs. Natalie became a volunteer while she was still at school and is an active, fun member of the team.
	Jess Jess is a long term client of the charity who has subsequently become a volunteer and director. Her particular area of expertise is children with aspergers syndrome and ASD with 20 years of experience in these areas. She is the mother of five children, 3 of whom have additional needs and is happy to guide you through whatever help you may need in dealing with your own children's needs
	Charlotte My name is Charlotte = D I am a volunteer for the SEN family support group; I am 22 years old and work with young adults with complex needs. I became involved with the charity because 2 of my brothers have Aspergers Syndrome and the charity has helped my family ^_^ I would encourage everyone to get involved with this charity as it is fun, rewarding and a great opportunity to make new friends xD

We have a extensive network of volunteers who support the charities aims and objectives, most of them have received help from the charity and now volunteer their own time. If you are interested in becoming a volunteer please contact us.

Number  of clients that we have help this year 2011-2012

From January 2011 to January 2012, our Advice line received over 411 calls from young people, parents/carers and agencies support families in crises, over 231 being first time callers, a 20 per cent increase on the previous year.  We have support 604 families over the year. We have helped via meeting with 258 people in the drop in centres and through our outreach service.

We have held 27 training events and 11 information days and three social events

Volunteers warmly welcome

Volunteering need our charity works in depth with young people and adults with special needs. We also support families of children with complex difficulties. We are seeking motivated hardworking and committed volunteers to help support families and the infrastructure of the Special Needs Family Support Group. If you have some time to spare please consider becoming a valued team member, that will gain many new skills make long term friends and have fun knowing that you are helping to change the lives of vulnerable people.

This is a small example of tasks that volunteers can become involved with:

• ·        Research into special needs
• ·        Publicity and promotion materials
• ·        Information fact sheets for clients and professionals
• ·        Monitoring and evaluating the service
• ·        Organising social activities
• ·        Fundraising
• ·        Mentoring clients
• ·        Networking
• ·        Providing quality information and advice

Please contact us if you would like an introduction into the charities work.

We will provide taster sessions to all new potential volunteers, at a time and venue to meet your needs. Each potential volunteer will be asked to provide references, also volunteers expressing an interest in working directly with the young people and vulnerable adults all successful applicants will be subject to an Enhanced CRB Disclosure.

We look forward to meeting you soon.

Please call Sam (volunteer coordinator) on 0161 755- 3482 or email  us at  contact@senfsg.com