Sleep support for families

CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE WITH SEND ARE MORE AT RISK OF DEVELOPING SLEEP ISSUES. THIS HAS A KNOCK-ON EFFECT WITH PARENTS AND CARERS OFTEN BEING LEFT EXHAUSTED AND IN CRISIS.

The Sleep Charity was set up by a parent of a child with special needs. Vicki Dawson, CEO and Founder, understands the devastating impact that sleep deprivation can have on families.

Said Vicki: “When a child has sleep issues, the whole family doesn’t sleep well. Our aim at The Sleep Charity is to share information and offer support to empower people to make changes to their sleep patterns to get a better night’s sleep.”

Prior to working in the charity, Vicki was a teacher in several special schools in South Yorkshire. She added: “When youngsters are sleep deprived, they can’t meet their full potential, I’ve seen this countless times in my classrooms. It can impact negatively on daytime behaviour, attendance at school through the immune system becoming compromised and ability to learn.”

Alex is 7 years old and has a diagnosis of ADHD, his behaviour was extremely challenging. His parents contacted the charity for support unable to cope any more with the exhaustion they faced. A detailed assessment took place to identify the potential causes of the sleep issue and in partnership with the family a sleep programme was created.

His dad Robert said: “We’d been told by professionals that Alex wouldn’t sleep because of his ADHD and just accepted this. We read about some research involving the charity where children with ADHD gained an additional 2.4 hours sleep per night after using their methods. We knew as a family we needed to give it a try and were fortunate that we live in an area where they have a funded service.

“It was hard work sticking to the programme but within six weeks he had gone from not sleeping for 48 hour periods to sleeping eight hours most nights without waking. It has been life changing for us as a family.”

The charity has recently gained funding from the National Lottery for a new project, ‘Sleep Talkers’. They are training volunteers from charities nationally to support families of children with SEND.

Sarah trained as a Sleep Talker and is also a parent/carer: “Training helped me to understand why my daughter had sleep issues in the past. I’ve learned things I never knew about sleep and can now pass this on to other families. I supported one family who were considering adoption for their child because they couldn’t cope with the chronic sleep deprivation faced. Once they understood about sleep, they recognised the changes they needed to make and thankfully life has improved, and they’ve stayed together as a family unit.”

Sleep support is a postcode lottery and the charity operates several funded services across the country. In September 2021 they were able to launch a national helpline thanks to sponsorship from high street retailer, Furniture Village.

The helpline operates Sunday to Thursday evenings 7-9pm and is run by a team of trained sleep advisors.

Helpline manager Liz Wilson said: “Our team have experience of supporting families of children with SEND. Sometimes it helps just to have a listening ear at the end of the phone. We can provide families with information to support them to improve their child’s sleep and our website is also full of downloadable resources that they may find useful.”

You can find more information about the work of the charity at www.thesleepcharity.org.uk