SEN Reform NI Wellbeing Day

Photo Credit: Dorothy Murray
Caption: Synchronicity Wellness & Yoga leading the wellness portion of the event.

As the crisis in school places for children with special educational needs came to a head in 2023, some carer parents struggling with the issue met online and decided to set up SEN Reform NI, an unconstituted, advocacy group led by four parents/carers who work full time and who all have children with special needs.

Dorothy Murray was one of the co-founders of the group. In January this year when her friend saw information online about the Bank of Ideas she sent it on to Dorothy thinking it would be perfect for SEN Reform NI. The group had never had any funding before.

“We decided to apply because of the way it’s done, with the voting day, ” said Dorothy. ”It’s something completely different. We thought funding would be endless work, page after page of admin and applications, and we had no time for that in between work and looking after our SEN kids as well as all our other kids.”

“It was the first application we’ve ever done,” said Dorothy, “We had no technical expertise - only shared life experience of struggling to get school places and caring for SEN kids.”

The group worried about where to get a sponsor and how to go about it, but they found one in Dumbworld, when connected up by the team at Belfast City Council.

For the voting day, the group put together two sign boards to demonstrate what the wellness day would look like and to highlight the group’s journey so far, with examples of meetings with politicians, the education minister, and information sheets they had created.

“We wanted people to see we were serious about it,” Dorothy said, “but the voting day was also a great opportunity to be really creative and that’s something we were wanting to do as well, something different. We put it out on our social media about the voting day and lots of the parents came down to support us. It was great to meet up with people we had only even been in contact with online and see them face to face for the first time.”

Dorothy and the rest of the group were impressed with the variety of other projects being pitched at the voting day including lots of other projects relating to children with special needs.

“We wouldn’t have found out about those opportunities otherwise. There were also two guys who were applying for funding to recreate old street signs and it turned out they live about two minutes away from me but I’d never even heard of their project before. ”

Dorothy has since kept in touch with some of the other Bank of Ideas applicants she met at the voting day. Dorothy said she didn’t think SEN Reform NI had done well on the day as it was hard to tell what people thought about their project, and they were surprised and delighted to hear they had been successful.

“It was so good being able to see if the other groups we connected with on the day got through as well and send them congratulations. I was chatting with the people from the Sailortown group because that’s where my granny was from, and it was great to see they were funded too.”

Their Dumbworld contact Rhiann Cooper helped them to get everything set up to receive the funding including creating the budget spreadsheets, names of suppliers, and gave lots of other friendly support and advice all along the way. The funded project was a Wellness Event held at White City Community Centre in August 2024. Synchronicity Wellbeing provided Yoga, a sound bath and therapy as well as a journalling workshop. With the funding the group received, they were able to also provide yoga mats, journals and pens as well as lunch with tea and coffee. They had about 20 people attend and take part and the feedback the group received was very positive.

Dorothy said: “The project went even better than we could have imagined. The parents and carers really benefited from the event, saying they felt energised and relaxed. One of them said our event gave them their first proper chance of meeting other parents and carers in a similar position and they were able to speak with others who could relate to their own journey. They were able to share some advice and wisdom about what had helped them.”

The group received a lot of requests to have more events in the future where the parents/ carers  meet more people who have had similar experiences and understand how they are feeling. “They want to feel part of a strong and empathetic support network,” Dorothy said.

As a result of the project, Dorothy said the group’s perspectives have changed. Because the event was such a success they now feel motivated to provide more opportunities for parent/carers.

“Our group is currently having discussions about how we do this - figuring out the logistics involved to see if we can make it work. It is something we are very keen to undertake as we know the pressures and the fact there is not a lot of support out there so we would like to bridge that gap for carers.”

Dorothy said the whole Bank of Ideas experience was a great boost to the group’s confidence and they are now in the process of setting up a constitution and registering as a charity. They are looking forward to applying for further funding for more projects in future.

“We have felt so involved in Belfast 2024 by taking part in the project as a whole from submitting the request for funding to taking part in the voting day to holding the project. It is so good to see so many people and projects coming together and to showcase all of these and it can only be a positive for Belfast!”