Beresfords announces charity partnership with SNAP
Award-winning property group, Beresfords, has recently announced a new partnership with Brentwood based charity, SNAP.
The online Directory provides a comprehensive guide to useful contacts to point you in the right direction.
SNAP’s vision is to provide a safe environment offering a wide range of support and specialist services with the aim to increase resilience and empowerment within our families. SNAP’s ethos is about strengthening all members of the family.
There’s nothing too small or too large you can do to help SNAP; if you would like to support us, there’s lots of opportunity and we’d welcome your contribution.
From our base in Brentwood, SNAP is an Essex charity which helps thousands of families with children and young people who have an additional need or disability.
Ava, nine, has a series of very complex medical needs including hydrocephalus, cerebral palsy and epilepsy. She is blind and is a wheelchair user, needs round the clock care and frequently has to be admitted to hospital.
Ava was born six weeks prematurely, and all seemed ok until Liz and husband Dan were about to take her home from hospital when it was discovered she had severe brain damage which the couple later found out was from an infection Liz had caught during pregnancy.
“It’s one of those bugs healthy adults can carry and never know they have as it does not affect them but to an unborn foetus it can be devastating,” explained Liz.
Having already had a healthy child – son George, three when Ava was born – Liz was determined her daughter would have the same experiences.
“I took Ava to all the toddler groups to which we had taken George. But it was pointless. She got nothing out of them.
“Her vision impairment teacher suggested we go to SNAP and I was reluctant. Not because I was in denial that Ava had disabilities but I think because I did not want to see the future.”
Yet rather than fear Liz was greeted by a blanket of comfort and constructive help when she arrived at The SNAP Centre in Brentwood.
“My anxiety melted away the minute I walked through the door. Ava was no longer the child who was the odd one out; here she was an equal. She had a peer group. It was the first time I really saw her able to play as all of SNAP’s toys were especially designed for children like Ava. Everything was specialised.”
Liz was matched with another mother who had a child with similar needs to Ava’s and the pair soon found they had a lot to talk about.
Liz explained, “I felt a huge weight lift from my shoulders. It made me realise that although Ava was not going to have a life anything like George’s, she was going to have a life. This was a real turning point for us as a family.
The charity not only helped Ava, and her parents but her older brother too.
“George had always been very protective of and anxious about Ava. When he started school he was worried something would happen while he was away from the home and did not want to join any after school activities.
“But after much persuading he attended a summer holiday activity camp at SNAP for siblings of children with special needs. He loved it as they had tremendous fun and he was with children who were living in similar circumstances to himself.
“This made his confidence soar, and when he went back to school he signed up for two clubs.
“As a family, SNAP has given us so much help over the past eight years. I do not know what I would have done without them.”
Credit: Nicola Taylor
Award-winning property group, Beresfords, has recently announced a new partnership with Brentwood based charity, SNAP.
SNAP held its annual January quiz night on Friday 27th January at The Nightingale Centre, Warley, located next to the organisation’s home, The SNAP Centre.
Caitlin has known SNAP for well over a decade after her parents found the charity for support with her younger brother, Jack. She has taken…
The cracking team at HS Estate Agents in Brentwood have been moved by the response of the local businesses community to a charity plea they…
Our Family Services Director, Karen Boath, has been appointed SNAP’s Chief Executive and is determined to continue to provide families with the ‘gold star’ service that SNAP…
SNAP’s Helpline and Face-to-Face sessions were part of an external evaluation funded by The National Lottery Community Fund and conducted by evaluation specialists Eastside Primetimers.…
Request to receive Parent and Carer support
Help support The SNAP Centre and Services