Headway East London
http://www.headwayeastlondon.org
Headway East London is a voluntary organisation dedicated to providing a better quality of life for people with acquired brain injury, their families and carers. In 1996, staff and supporters at Homerton Hospital's Neurological Rehabilitation Unit got together with families and brain injury survivors to discuss the lack of services in the community for people being discharged from the Unit. Often, after making significant progress whilst in hospital, six months or so down the line patients' conditions were seen to deteriorate due to lack of appropriate stimulation.
After a great deal of hard work and fundraising, East London Headway
House was opened in Homerton in March 1998. Three people attended
the centre on one day a week. The service expanded rapidly and
in July 2002 moved to significantly bigger premises in Shoreditch.
Headway House employs thirteen full and part time workers and
is assisted by a group of fifty part time volunteers, many of
them brain injury survivors themselves. At present the centre
caters for ninety attenders four days a week. Considering that
an estimated 33,000 people in Greater London are affected by severe
brain injury and Headway house is one of only two centres covering
this whole area, there is clearly a great deal more to be done.
Staff assist with basic conversational therapy, helping build
a sense of trust that in turn enables attendants to gradually
rediscover a sense of confidence in social interaction. In addition
to advice of a range of important practical issues including housing,
employment and university applications etc a wide variety of therapeutic
activities such as music classes, yoga, art and jewellery making
are also on offer.
As things stand, approximately 70% of the costs of services provided
are met by local borough councils; however this leaves a big gap
which the centre has to try and fill through fundraising.
When I visited the centre last week and met with some of the staff
they were really enthusiastic about what we're doing with 1% offering
lots of encouragement and some useful advice for our long term
business plan. They suggested a number of ways in which the money
we would hope to donate (£700) could help, including: covering
the costs of approximately ten weeks at the centre for an individual
attendant, purchasing musical instruments, contributing to the
£8000 needed to buy gym equipment or helping pay a teacher
for a new Tai Chi class that the centre is hoping to start soon.
Should Headway get elected we would obviously consult our members
when deciding which project to support.
Lastly I think it's worth mentioning that the centre is always
looking out for new volunteers both in the centre and working
as part of a new fundraising team they are in the process of setting
up.
The centre really has a fantastically positive atmosphere about
it and I'm sure the staff would not mind if any of you wanted
to drop by and check it out.
Their volunteer co-ordinator, Ben, can be reached on
I've also included a link to some of the stories regarding the kind of people we'd be helping.
http://www.headwayeastlondon.org/hwayhouse/mystory/
Marcus Fairhurst