Making a difference in 2024

During the last year, Rockinghorse has made it possible for thousands of children and families to get the extra support they need.

As your local children’s charity, Rockinghorse has directly supported 185,000 children with 76 different projects during the last year.

This includes the premature babies who need specialist equipment to breathe, the children being treated for cancer who need someone to talk to about how they are coping, the teenagers coming to the emergency department after self-harming who need support to manage their mental health, and so many more.

Working directly with doctors and nurses in specialist baby and children’s units across Sussex, the charity has made it possible to provide so much support that makes a difference to the lives of so many.

Supporting wellbeing

We all know that going through a painful medical procedure, spending a long time in hospital, or learning how to manage the impact of a long-term health diagnosis can be really difficult for a child or young person, not just on their physical health but also their mental health and wellbeing.

If children feel brave enough to go to the appointment they are so frightened to go to, it means that fewer appointments are missed or delayed, and children and families have a less anxiety-provoking waiting time to undergo the treatment they so desperately need.

Or, for older children, feeling they have a place to talk about what’s going on for them, somewhere where they don’t feel like the different one, or the ill one, but just a normal kid dealing with a health condition they don’t want and never asked for.

This year, Rockinghorse has made it possible for this wellbeing support to be there for hundreds of local families, by creating and delivering a dedicated children’s Wellbeing Service at the Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital.

This means children and their families have access to the right support, at the right time, in the right place. Support that can make all the difference to a child’s ability to manage their treatment and make the most of their lives.

A world first

The charity is also working on an amazing project in conjunction with Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital and Brighton and Sussex Medical School to expand access to the world’s first clinic to treat childhood asthma using innovative precision medicine approaches.

More than 1.1 million children in the UK are currently receiving treatment for asthma. The condition is usually treated with inhalers but, until recently, this has been generally untargeted with similar approaches being used regardless of the child’s individual characteristics or the child’s environment.

Testing a child to determine their genetic make-up can reveal what medications won’t work for them, and crucially, the ones that will. This means that each child has a better chance of receiving more appropriate treatments for their condition.

This is a great example of how working directly with doctors and medical staff within the NHS can help make it possible to provide ground-breaking research and treatment that will improve clinical practice and improve access to treatment for generations to come.

Mental health and neurodiversity

Being able to support young people’s mental health and neurodiversity is becoming more and more important. One in five young people are currently experiencing some level of mental ill health and self-harming rates in 10–24-year-olds in Brighton alone are almost 50% higher than the rest of England.

Recognising the growing need for additional support around this area, Rockinghorse has worked closely with NHS staff on the ground to develop projects that address these needs.

This might mean creating spaces better able to support children and young people with Special Educational Needs, like a new sensory room at The Tarner Family Hub in Brighton to help the staff team improve the care they are able to provide their young patients.

Or it could be providing another year of funding for their Youth Worker project to help young people regularly coming into the Emergency Department at the Royal Alex with injuries, overdoses and mental health issues related to difficult situations happening in their lives.

Thank you

But absolutely none of this work, or any of the 76 amazing projects delivered by the charity during 2024, would have happened without help from the local community.

Rockinghorse CEO Donna Holland said: “By working so closely alongside doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals in children’s wards and baby units across Sussex, we have been able to develop and deliver projects and services that address the issues children in Sussex are facing.

“But without the support of local community groups, businesses, challenge participants and individuals who have taken so much of their time and effort to help support us this year, we wouldn’t have been able to achieve any of this.

“So, thank you for enabling us to continue to change lives, improve lives and save lives. We couldn’t do it without you.”

www.rockinghorse.org.uk