Charities
Learn about our chosen charity
Tom is an ambassador for an Oxfordshire Children’s charity and supports their work emphatically. A percentage of his fees will go to ROSY which will help them to continue to help many families who need it.
ROSY – Respite Nursing for Oxfordshire’s Sick Youngsters, is an organisation that raises funds to boost the extremely limited resources of Oxfordshire’s Children’s Respite Nursing Team. The team offers respite nursing to terminally, acutely, or chronically ill children and babies in their homes.
It is sometimes difficult to even contemplate but some children are born with life limiting or chronic conditions and others develop them early in their young lives. Advances in medical science provide that many of these children can be nursed at home. It is what their families want and it is often better for the children to be with their loved ones. As can be imagined, this places an enormous burden on the families, a burden willingly undertaken and bravely born.
Demands on the National Health Service, often victims of their own success, results in support to these families being, understandably, limited and this is where ROSY comes in. ROSY is an Oxfordshire Charity formed to support these families. They now pay the salaries of ten nurses who work in the children’s unit within the NHS to provide that vital respite support. ROSY will buy any specialist equipment the families may need to make their lives a little more bearable. For example, they have bought portable hoists so that sick children can go on holidays with their families. They also provide psychological support where needed, support groups and often hold events for siblings of the sick children (often the forgotten ones) which are funded from a market stall that is run in Oxford and much, much more.
At present there are 60 families in Oxfordshire receiving respite support and a further 150 families who have chronically sick children in the home and need help.