Category Archives: News

Summer Gets Active 2022

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8 Days, 13 Activities, 50 Peer Mentors, 75 Children, 48 Families and 9 Nationalities…

It was another busy summer at Portadown Gets Active, with an excellent team of peer mentors who delivered 7 of the workshops over the 2 weeks. A fantastic family day took place with a visit from Jurassic LOC-down and lots of Jurassic-themed activities ran across the week!

Find out more about the Summer Gets Active 2022 programme and about what participating children, young people and families thought of the experience HERE

Next up, Halloween’s “Monsters Inc Gets Active”…

(The aims of Portadown Gets Active (PGA) are to provide Primary School age children, who are eligible for free school meals, with a healthy breakfast and lunch outside of school term-time, as well as providing opportunities to learn something new, participate in physical activities and most importantly have fun with their peers. Referrals also come through the Craigavon & Banbridge Family Support Hub (FSH) , Community Intercultural Programme, Family Intervention and SHSCT. Children from Portadown, Craigavon, Lurgan and Banbridge attend the Programme. Oasis Youth, PGA’s lead community partner, works in partnership with key agencies and organisation to ensure PGA has run successfully since 2017.)

Derry, Limavady, Strabane & Waterside LPG News – September 2022

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Welcome to the September 2022 edition of the locality news for Derry, Limavady, Strabane and Waterside Locality Planning Groups with lots of the latest information on training, programmes, events and resources across the local area.

Download your copy – Derry, Limavady, Strabane & Waterside LPG News – September 2022

(Note: LPG News will download directly to your device.  Look out for the pop up box and click on open file when it appears).

Talk, Play and have Fun

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Our September message of the month is: “Make our home language number one so we can talk, play and have fun”

Encourage parents to interact and communicate with their children in their home language. This is very important for and supports attachment, identity, understanding and self-esteem.

Communication is essential for a young child to build relationships; therefore it is particularly important that they can communicate with their primary caregiver and key adults around them.

When a child has moved from his/her home country, maintaining their first language helps to keep that important link with their home culture and strengthen their sense of personal identity.

Please use the link below which will take you to:

  • Message of the month video
  • a PDF version of the poster (to be displayed in setting or shared via email, Seesaw or another platform)
  • some additional ideas for how to put this message into practice

LINK TO ACCESS VIDEO AND RESOURCES HERE à https://view.pagetiger.com/messageofmonthsep/1

Furthermore, Check out this video which also supports our message this month: https://www.bbc.co.uk/tiny-happy-people/how-do-i-bilingual-development/ztrj4xs 

Don’t forget about our training for parents and anyone working with babies up to school aged children: You can access the Help Kids Talk Basic Awareness training via the link above, there are dates available for September & October at the moment. I would encourage you to sign up for level 1 training only when you have completed the Basic Awareness.

 

Moving into Secondary School with Type 1 Diabetes

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Year 8 Pupils and Parents.

31st August 2022, 7pm (online via Zoom)

Are you starting secondary school? Do you have type 1 diabetes? Then join our online session for Year 8 pupils and parents, where young leaders will share their experiences and top tips, as well as a workshop on dealing with anxiety.

Created for young people with type 1 diabetes and their parents/guardians, you’ll join two workshops which aim to help you and your child prepare for the big move into year 8. This can be a challenging time for young people without having to consider how you might manage your diabetes so join us for this zoom – learn about managing anxiety, hear from our volunteers and connect with people from this community.

For more information or to register follow this link: Back 2 School – moving into secondary school with type 1 diabetes Tickets, Wed, Aug 31, 2022 at 7:00 PM | Eventbrite

Southern Area FYI Newsletter Issue 87

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Welcome to the 87th edition of our information bulletin, ‘FYI’ (For Your Information).

Download Issue 87 here

(Note: FYI will download directly to your device.  Look out for the pop up box and click on open file when it appears)

We hope you have had a good summer and enjoyed some time off to recharge batteries.

Since our last edition of ‘FYI’, a month ago, we have gathered a massive amount of information, opportunities and resources for practitioners, parents/caregivers and children & young people. As always we have categorised these into themes, at the front-end of the newsletter, followed by geographic areas at the end.

You will see on Slide 3 a call for all our LPG members to complete a short survey to help us ensure Locality Planning Groups are effective as they can be.  Slide 4 also asks for information to help map current support available to meet the cost of living crises. Then we have our new information leaflet to tell you all about who we are and what we do.

Joanne Patterson & Darren Curtis, Locality Development Team, Southern Area