Little Miracles

Little Miracles is a parent led support group and Charity for families that have children with additional needs, disabilities and life limiting conditions. We started in March 2010 running a weekly drop in session at the Honeyhill Children’s and Community Centre in Paston, Peterborough every Monday between 1 and 3.

This coffee morning quickly expanded from a peer to peer mentoring project to providing holiday activities and emotional support. In January 2012 we had reached a size whereby we had to open our own centre in Werrington because we could not hire a hall enough to accommodate the amount of people attending, so we now run around twenty sessions per week to allow the families to choose which sessions are something they would like to attend. Our centre is now open every weekday (unless of course we are taking the children out) and also offer a number of other services including day trips and activities, bereavement support, benefits advice, counselling and referrals to other organisations many of whom regularly hold sessions in conjunction with us to offer advice around specific topics. By September 2013 we had outgrown the three industrial units which had been knocked into one and converted into a children’s play centre. This is when the BBC stepped in and helped us via their DIY SOS Children in Need special. After speaking to the families about what they wanted over 600 volunteers and local companies came together to create a purpose built to our charity to grow.

We have since expanded with a further support location at Soham on the Cambridgeshire / Suffolk border. This provides coverage for the Cambridge, Ely and Newmarket areas. We are presently working towards extending further into other areas also.

Most of our staff members are volunteers, and all of our trustees and management committee members are parents of carers to children with additional needs, disabilities or life limiting conditions. As a result we are always looking for help. There are many ways that you can help us from donating, volunteering, doing a sponsored event or even just telling other people about us please do get in contact for a chat about we can help each other.

Find out more by visiting the Little Miracles website.

Autism Charities

Autism is a lifelong neuro-developmental disability that affects the development of the brain in areas of social interaction and communication. People with autism have difficulties in communicating and forming relationships with people, in developing language and in using abstract concepts. It also impacts on their ability to make sense of the world around them.

Autism is described as a ‘spectrum’ disorder. This means that the symptoms and characteristics of autism can present themselves in a wide variety of combinations and can range from mild to severe. Two people with the same diagnosis can act very differently from one another and have varying skills. Autism Spectrum Disorder is also referred to as ASD.

Autism is often referred to as the ‘hidden’ disability because people who are on the autistic spectrum show no significant physical difference to their peers, rather it is their behaviours that mark them out as different.