My experience at the People’s health lottery Tea party hosted by the famous Simon Cowell

My experience at the People’s health lottery Tea party hosted by the famous Simon Cowell 

Yesterday I was at the peoples health lottery tea party at the London claridges hotel. The event was hosted by Mr Simon Cowell. The were several other celebrities there like Katie Walsh(of the Apprentice), Cheryl Ferguson, Kimberly Walsh, Chantelle Houghton. Brendon of the strictly come dancing. It was a very well organised event and the catering was fantastic.

I had a really good time so I thought I should just say a little about how I got involved with the lovely charity, Scope who invited me to the event. A few years ago, I moved over to the north west from the east midlands and like every other family with disabled children, isolation set in on a very big scale and my children’s key worker told me about the face to face scheme where parents with kids with similar disabilities will be put in touch with each other, Katie Walsh said it’s like a match-making sort of. I tell you, getting on the face to face scheme is one of the best things to happen to me. By the way, face to face is funded by Scope or rather under scope.

So face to face sent this lovely lady called Sarah to my house, she’s also a mum of a child with down’s syndrome. From the first day, Sarah and I really clicked and it was so lovely to chat with a mum that has walked the same path as you or rather someone who’s on a similar life journey even though our children are uniquely different like every other child. Sarah is a really good listener and very kind lady.

There’s so much to say but with several visits and Sarah even visiting when my daughter was at the intensive care ward at the Manchester children’s hospital, I have made a friend for life really even if we don’t see each other every day. Face to face helped me to build my confidence again because one of the things that often suffer when you suddenly wake up and find that your child has special needs and it’s for life is one’s self esteem. I believe in myself more now and I now have a small business, very small but growing. It’s Joy and Joe baby wrap carrier and I’m proud of our small achievements as a family. Joy has been healthy thanks to God, she’s not been in hospital for almost 2 years now except for checkups, Joseph is thriving very well too and they both love school and nursery rhymes. On the business note, I've been able to get my baby carriers safety certified by a reputable government laboratory and they now conform to the BS EN 13209-2:2005, standards for soft baby carriers and duly insured too.

I would really recommend the face to face scheme to other mums and dads with disabled children, the emotional support you get is second to none. Its great and a massive thanks to Richard Hawkins, the director of Scope for kindly introducing me to Simon Cowell at the event and taking a photo of us:).
To the People’s health lottery, thank so much for supporting Scope charity, you can tell that their impact is being felt around the UK by families with vulnerable children. To everyone, please buy lottery tickets from the health lottery scheme and continue to support worthy causes such as these:) Our children will be grateful in future for this as well. Thanks so much