January 2013

So as is customary in our Gregorian calendar, Christmas came and went. The young people of Jigsaw4u were treated to presents kindly donated by the staff and friends of Breeze Yoga Beckenham and ASDA. The young people were thoroughly chuffed with their gifts so THANK YOU all very much.

 Santa Fun Run

Jenny  Christmas caroling

As well as our bowling trip, the grief team took a group of young people and their carers to a traditional Christmas party at Southside House in Wimbledon, and had two Macmillan Christmas parties at Harrods and Mandarin Oriental.

We had great fun at our own Christmas lunch at the Jigsaw office and our party at The Holiday Inn in Sutton. Everyone enjoyed the Christmas pud, secret santa and the Gangnam Style disco!

What's going on?

Sadly before Christmas we lost one of our projects – the Advocacy service, and Advocacy manager Eny Osung. As a member of the Jigsaw4u family for 12 years it will be sad to see him go, but we must! We’ll be having a leaving lunch mid February. Hopefully Eny will be able to stay in touch with Jigsaw and help us out with other projects in the future.

Eny Osung

On a more positive note, we have been given some Comic Relief funding to run Merton and Sutton Sexual Exploitation projects which will be run by our Young Runaways team Patricia Alin and Sindia Malhotra, so that’s even more great work that’s going to be going on at 40 Mill Green Road.

Fun Day display

Following the Disabled Children’s Project fun day we have been working on tackling the accessibility of transport, how to cope with bullying and looking at whether there is training for bus drivers in how to support young people being bullied on buses. We are also working with Sutton Parents’ Forum, Contact a Family, the Sutton Transition Team and the ASD service to produce a new and improved ‘Transition’ leaflet to explain the process and hopefully improve it for young people going through transition in Sutton. We are hoping to see changes to transport, leisure services and school bullying policies as a result of the event so watch this space!

Our Choice new issue

The Disabled Children’s Participation Project has also published the new edition of their magazine ‘Our Choice’ which is distributed to all young people in Sutton on the Disability Register.

In other news - The Grief Support Team are starting their new programme of groups next week, our Home School Links workers are back into schools after the festivities and some of our projects including our Domestic Violence project have been to the local mosque in Morden to promote our service to the wider community.

Fundraising

The family and friends of Sam Chapman raised an amazing £1500 for Jigsaw4u at The Sam Chapman Memorial Race Night. It’s an annual race night held in the memory of Sam Chapman, whose family attended the grief support groups here at Jigsaw4u after she passed away. Her father and mother came in with the donation, but we know that all of her family and friends helped so much in making the event a success and raising such an amazing amount of money for Jigsaw, so thank you all very much!

Sally Morgan and Pam Byfield

Other fundraising news includes a £250 cash donation from Next PLC for the second year running, a £272 donation from Riddlesdown Collegiate and a generous £1000 from TV psychic Sally Morgan who donated her Celebrity Come Dine With Me winnings!

Thank you all so much for all your help, all the staff at Jigsaw4u and the children, young people and families we work with will always be very grateful for your support!

There's more to come....

And they’re off....On the 2 March there will be another Race Night, at Cranleigh Tennis and Social Club, SW19 3LX in aid of Jigsaw4u. This is a great chance to put your cash where your horse is and raise some money for charity all at the same time. There will be 8 races throughout the night which you can bet on, only 50p a bet, and you can also 'buy' a horse for £3 - all owners of winning horses will win a prize on the night. Get in touch with info@jigsaw4u.org.uk if you’d like to get tickets.

Jigsaw4u stand at info fair

We’re also having a prospective volunteer night on Wednesday 6^th March 6pm – 7.30pm so if you know of any prospective volunteers,email the above address with their contact details and we will send them an invitation to come along and hear all about the opportunities we have here at J4U.

Hope you've all had a great January and see you again soon with our February update; any Valentine's Day cards sent in will feature in next month's blog so get sending - chocolates and flowers also appreciated.

The Jigsaw4u Team. x