For those of you who do not know much about DSL or have not heard of the organisation

· It was set up as a voluntary organisation in 1998 by an enterprising group of parents in Peckham whose children lacked any real access to speech and language therapy in their borough.

· Today, DSL has charitable status and provides a vital service to 30-35 children and their families from across South London.

· We provide weekly intensive therapy and support parents and carers, helping to educate them as to how best to help progress the speech and language development of children with Down's Syndrome further.

· This speech therapy is complemented by physio and occupational therapy, to help the children build their strength and independence.

 

Everything is, ultimately focused on helping the children to accelerate their development so that they can be integrated as easily as possible into their school communities and society as a whole.

 

The service costs over £90,000 a year to run and is funded entirely from donations and cash raised by parents.

 

As you can imagine, the children come from families with a wide range of circumstances – inevitably those from the least advantaged backgrounds need this support the most and have the lowest propensity to afford any self-funded therapies or raise the required funding.

 

Children receive personalised treatment, in both individual and group sessions and we are able to give them a breadth and depth of input that is significantly greater than previously ever achieved and remains generally unavailable to children with Down’s Syndrome. We have continued with our programme of parental support groups, hosting parents of current and former patients to discuss all manner of aspects of developmental opportunities, school relationships, mentoring and general emotional support. More than that, we have also been able to make great inroads into our waiting list, inviting six new families to join. We have also been actively contacting local referrers (GPs, child development consultants, etc) to encourage more people to contact us and are examining how we can extend our support into areas such as providing legal support to families as they go through the traumatic process of getting the first Statutory Statement of Educational Needs for their children - the legal agreement with the local authority that governs the child's support and care package. Again, those from the least advantaged backgrounds tend to get the worst outcomes and do not have the means to seek legal advice. We are also going to launch a website, with one of its objectives being to consolidate leading practice and support resources for parents.

 

The coming 12 months require a renewed focus on our fundraising activities. It will not surprise you learn that we are having to battle incredibly hard to maintain service levels in line with the last couple of years, so your support is ever more greatly appreciated.