Our Impact 2023-2024

This is our first video impact report, showcasing a year in the life of Amaze.

Supporting a disabled child, or young person is very challenging.Families typically face lots of additional barriers and don’t necessarily know how to find the support and services that they might need for their family.

So Amaze helps them with that, by providing information and advice and an environment where they can be together to support each other as parent carers.

We also support young people with additional needs, age 14 to 25, to feel valued, included in their community, and listened to.

And this past year has seen that work really grow, where we’ve taken on a new club called AmazeXtra, and we’re able to support more young people with more diverse special educational needs and disabilities.

It’s really important to us at Amaze that we’re listening to the families that we’re working with. They know best what their support needs are, and we’ll try to respond as best we can.

So this past year we’ve supported over 5,000 families in Brighton and Hove and East Sussex, and we’ve really grown some of those peer support groups, running out of more geographical locations, some thematic groups to reach more diverse families, and support them.

We’ve expanded our workforce, including some sessional workers so that we can run clubs more flexibly and reach more people.

We’re really proud that Amaze is here to support those families through those very challenging times.

You can download a short version of our Impact Report from our website, or browse these videos to hear more about our services and who we support.

Speaker 1

There were times when I just did not know which way to turn, and I was at my wits end, I would ring Amaze and they would always give me the best help and advice.

Like for example, there were times when Joshua flatly refused to eat any food at all, or times when he, I mean, going on and on and on for days and weeks.

There were times when he flatly refused to go to school at all. He flatly refused to leave home at all.

And it was all highly distressing and I’m no expert in any of those fields and Amaze just, you know, when I didn’t know which way to turn, I would ring up the advice line and somebody lovely on the other end.

I felt heard, I felt understood, and I also felt like other people had trodden a similar path.

Speaker 2

We knew from quite a young age, my son was autistic. We had quite an early diagnosis.

So through the channels of the NHS and going through Seaside View, we were encouraged to engage with Amaze to see what help they could offer.

So we sought to get him in the right school, which is a school in Woodingdean called Downsview. And they did help us with that process quite considerably.

So what was important to us is that Ben had the school with an outdoor space and Downsview had that, and Ben’s very physically mobile.

So we did have some struggles to get that request through, and Amaze helped us communicate our, our cause, to the local authority, and we were eventually successful with getting him to place at Downsview.

Amaze fundamentally addresses those needs that you, the special needs parents, encounter, and their wellbeing, and the child’s wellbeing is very much to the forefront of what they do.

But also what is good is the ambition behind Amaze and to represent inclusiveness, which a lot of us parents aspire to with our children, so they get treated fairly and have opportunities like others, and to generally provide, you know, wellbeing and opportunities for our children’s development.

Speaker 1
The main one that I came to Amaze for was filling in the forms for, um, DLA. because when I saw the forms, goodness me, I think it was like 40 pages.

It was like a little book and it comes with the book explaining how to fill in the form. When they mentioned that, you know, Amaze can help,I was really, really grateful.

And I spoke, I came here and I spoke to a lady called Lizzie, and she was happy to help and she told me that it’s gonna take us like all morning enough at least.

So come prepared, which I was like, yeah, okay then. I mean, and, yes, it’s very helpful.

Speaker 2
I mean, I did one online that was a DLA workshop, so that was just about filling in the DLA form, which is so complicated and I hadn’t actually started it at that point.

But to have all the information about how to do it was just invaluable. Because it’s not easy to complete that.

Speaker 3
She asked me to come in and sit down and talk to her, which I did. I didn’t realise at the time it was, she was gonna be my massive, massive help and she was my saving grace, Lizzie was. She got me to apply for Disability Living Allowance, which helped immensely.

Speaker 4
Lizzie from Amaze helped me with all the forms, but it was just having somebody who was like, yeah, I know. Yeah, I understand. Yeah, you deserve this.

Speaker 1
It is a place that I can come, be myself, I’ve had so many opportunities, different types of training and I’ve made lots of friends that I can see, that I can be friends with for a long time.

Speaker 2
It’s really good for me because I really enjoy it. Yeah. And it’s so happy. I’m happy around all of them.

Speaker 3
It’s a good place to come if you just wanna hang out, and it’s somewhere where, no-one judges you. You can just be yourself.

Speaker 4
I think it’s definitely a good place to go to if you want to make friends with other neurodiverse people.

Speaker 5
It’s a good chance to meet new friends, talk to people, play games, and do lots of different stuff, you can’t do at home.

Speaker 6
Yeah. I like coming to Amaze, because I like to play Uno quite often, and I like playing other games for fun.

Speaker 2
Other stuff like going out for trips, like basically bowling as well.

Speaker 7
Claire and Charlotte are really nice and understanding and you can talk to ’em about stuff, if you’re finding things difficult, like the group or if you’re having any other issues outside of Amaze, they’re really helpful with that.

Speaker 5
It’s nice every so often to have a catch up and kind of how things are going.

Speaker 4
It is very quiet. All the other youth groups are very loud, so it’s nice.

Speaker 5
I sometimes help with food and run games.

Speaker 2
Every Thursday when we come here. I’m making my own, I’m making my own dinner.

Speaker 6
Yeah. Because before I was nervous coming here, but now I’m fine.

Speaker 1
It’s a safe space. It’s not a judgey place. It’s just a nice place to come, and play Uno.

Speaker 1

I contacted Amaze to have a navigation call, which is a service they provide.

Boo gave me some strategies, but also again, just made me feel seen and understood, that I wasn’t imagining it, or maybe ‘you just need to be a bit more this or that’.

This is something significant and we can help you with this. And again, that was so, so useful.

So alongside that, there’s the fun days and the activities you can go to with your child, and then the workshops, online and face-to-face.

And I mean, I did one online about Neurodivergence, and then a few weeks ago I did a face-to-face workshop about ADHD specifically, which was so enlightening.

There were things there that I didn’t know about, and also meeting other parents, again, who are going through similar challenges to you, is just, it’s so, it’s immensely comforting.

Because so much of our parenting journey is about ourselves and how we can manage our own feelings about it all and regulate ourselves, and we are parenting ourselves at the same time as parenting our children.

So it’s not only strategies and skills that you are learning, but your kind of hearing from other parents and you’re learning skills that you can use for yourself, that just help you stay calm in those moments of difficulty.

You know, what we need more of in the world is compassion and understanding and acceptance and Amaze provides that in bucket loads, I think.

Speaker 1
The most important thing with befriending is to realize that you’re not alone. That there is other parents that have been through this.

I remember Louise gave me a phone call and she offered me a Befriender, which really, really helped.

She was amazing. I was paired to someone that was a single parent as well,

I had her for eight months whilst I was going through education & healthcare plans to get Oscar into a SEN provision school.

So I managed to get him quite a lot of support around it and I don’t feel I would’ve been able to access that if I didn’t have my befriender behind me, supporting me emotionally, especially being a solo parent.

I had no support from his father, but Amaze stepped in and gave me that extra person that I could rely on.

So my Befriender, she was just, she was very important to me at the time because I was very isolated and I didn’t actually realise actually how isolated I was.

And Amaze helped me open up my social circle with making connections with friends with children that understand it.

Speaker 2
When I now work as a Befriender and I hear frustration that they don’t feel supported with schools or funding or lots, lots of situations, and Amaze if they don’t have the answer, guide you into a place where you can find the answer.

So that support was so valid for me to be able to be in an environment and listen to stories, sometimes positive, sometimes not, but for me to be able to smile and go, oh my gosh, I totally get that.

That happens in my life. And sometimes even though we would go in and things are hard and conversations are hard, people laugh and recognize that you are not on your own.

You’re not having those feelings alone, other people. And even just to feel that other people understand your difficult days is amazing.

Speaker 1
Amaze was my link to the outside world as well. I didn’t realize I could get a Compass card, which actually helped me enormously with taking my child to places because I knew that they would be SEN friendly as well. It just opened up my life for me completely.

Speaker 2
So many helpful things. Like, for example, the Compass card, which is the leisure card, which is so brilliant if you want to go to the cinema. It just really, really helps out financially and swimming, and a whole lot of other things.

Speaker 3
They told me about the carers card, which was like, oh my goodness. Didn’t know about it. I mean, ’cause I, we do a lot of appointment. I was just thinking like, oh, if only I knew about this a year before.

Because you know, we’d had so many appointments up and down on the bus andnow suddenly I get all these discounts. I was like, well I’ll make the most of it anyway.

And we’ve been going to more park themes as well, ’cause I get a carers discount, obviously.

So we’ve tried a few more than I would have if I didn’t have, you know, the carers card and thanks to Amaze. So for me it’s been brilliant.