CLAPA Goes to Town

October 31, 2016

This week’s staff blog is from Cherry, our Regional Co-ordinator for the South East

Cleft Team Open Day

We’ve had a busy few weeks in the South East Region. The South London and Surrey branch together with the South Thames Cleft team provided an open day for families, aimed at those with children aged 5+ looking at future treatment pathways.

There was a mixture of formal presentations and informal opportunities for children and parents to ask questions of different team members about future treatment.

Children had the opportunity to take part in craft activities whilst their parents listened to the presentations. Families all met together for lunch in the atrium of the Evalina Children’s Hospital, and families had the opportunity to visit the ward.

Feedback from those attending included:

“It was all excellent, it was particularly good to be able to see/meet/hear about such a wide variety of the cleft aspects”

“ I enjoyed meeting the cleft team, useful to meet the orthodontics/dental team that I hadn’t met before”

“The event is extremely well organised”

“Thank you for an excellent open day, I hope to attend more CLAPA events”

Young People in the National Portrait Gallery

Then on 8^th October we had a Young People’s Activity day at the National Portrait Gallery, where those attending took part in an interactive workshop where we explored different techniques to produce sculptures and paintings, followed by lunch and a self-guided tour of the gallery.

Volunteers

I have also been having 1:1 sessions with all of my volunteers, mainly by telephone as I have over 60 volunteers in the South East. This happens twice a year to ensure that they feel part of the whole organisation and are supported and well informed about their role and able to share their ideas and suggestions. We have many different volunteering roles and some people hold more than one role.

We are hosting our annual Branch Day on 19^th November where two people from all of the branches across the UK meet together to share ideas, best practice and to hear about new developments within the organisation, and then it will be all systems go with Christmas Parties, there are 5 happening in the South East !

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