We're super excited to officially launch our first kids club, The Tic Time Club. Read about how this came about and how to get involved.
The idea for our kids club came after a couple of our members contacted us. They told us they were struggling to keep their young people with Tourette's entertained throughout lockdown and, as our local groups had to move online, they were missing the connection with other people who have Tourette's. We quickly realised that this was an issue for many of our families, and not just for the kids with Tourette's but for their siblings too.
Having the opportunity to meet other people with Tourette's is incredible and makes such a difference but, thanks to Covid-19, many of our youngest members have not had that chance yet. Others who were members before the pandemic were really missing their TS friends and the isolation was becoming a big issue.
We spent some time thinking about how a kids club would work and what it would involve. Our first step was to run monthly activity sessions with our primary school aged members. We included siblings in our invitation too as we know how hard being a sibling can be. We had no idea if it would work at all but we were amazed at the fantastic response we got and realised quickly that this service was needed by many.
Our first kids' session gave our participants a guided session using foam clay. The kids absolutely loved it and really enjoyed creating the suggested designs and, in some cases, their own designs too. They loved meeting other kids around their age who were experiencing similar challenges to them.
We are lucky to have the creative talents of Ross Macpherson to run the activity sessions and to support the kids. Our young ambassadors can quickly build a rapport with our younger members and encourage them in a supportive way, guided by their own knowledge and understanding of Tourette's and its cooccurring conditions.
The second step of our idea was to create a name and logo. Again we enlisted the creative talents of another of our young ambassadors, Abi McDonald. Abi created our club logo and this is now incorporated in our kids club stationary, welcome packs, and social media posts which makes our kid's posts easy to spot.
We continue to run our monthly activities for kids aged 5 to 11 and have had some fantastic feedback about this new service.
Our next step is to send out welcome packs to our Tic Time Club members. We have included certificates, a welcome letter, and some fidgets as we know how helpful these can be. We hope to arrange more activities and add a Tic Time web page in the future so any suggestions are welcomed.
If you'd like to enrol your kid/s in the Tic Time Club, you can do so on the website.
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