A South Holland family are fronting a national campaign to help raise awareness of a children’s charity.
The WellChild campaign includes a video of a concert where families sing the 12 Days of Christmas.
Aside from being part of the national, seasonal initiative, the video was also shown at a charity concert held at Lambeth Palace, home to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Emma and Philip Walters and their children Erin (11) and Joshua (8) appear in the recording.
Joshua has a serious condition called central alveolar hypoventilation and he requires help with his breathing.
He has been helped on his journey home from hospital by Nottingham-based WllChild children’s nurse Rachel Gregory.
Emma, a nurse at Peterborough City Hospital, is an active Parent Ambassador for WellChild and has been a member of the family tree peer-to-peer support network since 2015.
“We just wanted to give something back. The charity have been brilliant – getting PPE out to us and supporting us since Joshua was ten months old,” she said.
Joshua, who attends Quadring Primary School, relies on a ventilator at night and has other difficulties.
The charity allows families of children with complex needs to offer support and advice to each other.
The WellChild concert, which was part of the 12 days of Christmas series of concerts which took place on December 2 and featured English National Opera tenor David Webb and soloist Natalie Rushdie, members of the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
“We would like to thank the Walters family for being such great sports and taking part. It is a fantastic way of introducing some of the families that WellChild supports across the UK and some of the work we do for seriously ill children and their families,” said Colin Dyer, chief executive of the charity.
With the Duke of Sussex as patron, the charity provides a national network of children’s nurses who work with families to ensure youngsters with complex needs can return home.
During the early part of the pandemic it set-up a crisis response service to provide Personal Protective Equipment to shielding families.
More than 289,000 items have been sent out since the outbreak of coronavirus last year. See www.wellchild.org.uk for more details.
