16th September 2018

As the budget for Disabled Children’s Services is reduced small charities and groups like
The Oaks Playscheme will have to look to alternative sources for funding. Most would say
that this is something we should all be planning for but these things are not always as they
seem…. Local Government funding is essential in order to provide specialist provisions like
ours on a regular basis, a service that local families rely on in order to have some respite
from caring but whilst ensuring that their children can access an activity that would not
otherwise be available to them during the school holidays. An activity that we hope is fun
and stimulating but is also recognisable and familiar and so offers a place of security. In
order to achieve this small groups like ours need a reliable form of funding and our attempts
to find alternative sources are proving most difficult. We are asked to demonstrate that we
are sustainable but how can we really prove that when all alternative grant streams see that
we have been in receipt of local government funding and therefore consider us to be a
statutory service. Until the Short Breaks for Disabled Children funding is completely stopped
we won’t know whether other funding streams will help support us, offering us no security
and no reliable funding stream to ensure our sustainability for the future.
Rest assured we have built our financial reserves from fundraising and donations to ensure
that we will always be able to run the playscheme for one year and we continue to look to
alternative funding streams for support. The Oaks Playscheme has been running in
Petersfield for around 20 years and we won’t be stopped just yet!!