Emotional health and wellbeing has moved way up everybody’s agenda during 2020; for Daring to Dream, it is always top of their agenda, specifically for patients in Wales.
Why does this support matter?
Life-shortening, critical and chronic health conditions are hugely emotionally demanding of all patients. This emotional demand is on top of the immense physical ones generated by the ill health itself. Therefore, as a patient, in order to respond as well as possible on a physical level to personal health challenges, it is essential to also dig deep emotionally.
This new and ambitious charity’s support has real potential to add value to the clinical expertise and care that patients receive. Currently with additional COVID-related restrictions, and their impact on patients, it is even more important.
What do we do?
Daring to Dream works collaboratively with clinical staff and their recommendations to provide:
- Items that provide emotional comfort for patients such as bed / chairs for relatives to stay close with their loved one, care packs, puzzle books, individual patient headphones …
- Funds for the provision of regular, scheduled ward-based (or care home based) services and activities such as hairdressing or music
- Funds to create more usable, comfortable, and comforting Patients’ Day Rooms, and for Family and Quiet Rooms. These spaces are so important for patients, their relatives and for all those frequent and, tragically at times, very tough conversations with clinicians.
How we do it
We have a variety of approaches to our fundraising including regular giving, focused fundraising campaigns driven forward by Daring to Dream, individual sponsored activities, face to face and online fund raising events and future gifts via legacies.
Daring to Dream has ambitious plans, aspiring to the building of endowment funds via regular giving, large donations, and bequests in order to create sustainable long term giving in support of the emotional health and well-being of patients in Wales.
Patients in Wales need your support
We understand that even though many businesses are finding the current economic climate very tough indeed, we know they also acknowledge the need to maintain the emotional health and wellbeing of their staff. Putting CSR into practice is motivating for staff, knowing that they and their business are making a difference.
Even as it is tough for many at the moment in the workplace, it is even more challenging for those dealing with chronic illness, treatments, and medical interventions. Some of these patients, who would benefit from the work of Daring to Dream, may well be family members or good friends of your staff.
So yes, we are indeed asking for your assistance in adding to donations, for your support of our current and future projects. One-off donations, regular ones, fundraising team-building activities can make a real difference in providing some emotional support for others. You may wish to become one of our “Friends of Daring to Dream”? You may be able to offer skills and expertise and services “in kind”? Sometimes we can achieve so much by simply pooling our skills and it is not only about money, but how we collaborate to create good things.
Our current fundraising project:
To refurnish and refurbish the Coronary Care Day Unit (CCDU) Patients’ Room in the Cardiothoracic Directorate at University Hospital of Wales. Working once again with John Lewis & Partners Home Design Team, we have a great design for a room that is comfortable, welcoming, and safe.
At the same time Ward C7 (Surgery) is in desperate need for furniture for a dedicated room for patients and families so they can have privacy and feel comfortable in their surroundings. (C7 was turned into a temporary COVID ward earlier this year. Now back with Surgery, the room they wish to use as a patient and family room had been an essential changing room for staff so that they could don and doff their PPE and keep everyone safe. So, at the moment it is, understandably, a room of lockers.)
“Ever since we can remember, the Visitor Rooms in hospitals have always been a place of sadness complemented with boring colours; as kids we used to imagine the floor being lava to create a distraction for our minds whilst being in the hospital. As adults we did countless laps in the hospital corridors to escape the same room.
Now one of the goals of Daring to Dream is to be able to improve the facilities for all the families, like ours, who are visiting their loved ones in order to help remind them that the ward, in that hospital, is a place filled with love & care.”
Hamed & Hessam Amiri
To ensure we have enough funds to refurbish both these rooms, our aim is to raise just £1,750 to add to funds we have in hand.
More details here: https://daringtodream.wales/the-individual-daring-to-dream-10k-challenge/
Please do get in touch with Barbara Chidgey at [email protected] if you or your business would like to get involved. Thank you so much for your help.
Started a year ago as a charitable fund Daring to Dream is now a formally registered charity (No 1190590) and Barbara Chidgey is the Chair. Our mission is to support the emotional health and well-being of patients who receive care from hospital clinics across Wales. Initially we will have a primary (but not exclusive) focus in supporting both ward-based and community-based patients within the geographical area covered by Cardiff & Vale University Health Board. www.daringtodream.wales
You can make a donation here: https://daringtodream.wales/
