You might not have heard of local North-East charity Rainbow Rogues, but its hard work has positively impacted the lives of vulnerable children and their families right across Aberdeen City and Shire since 2005.
The charity is just weeks away from closing its doors to families reliant on its vital services if funding cannot be secured.
Ellon-based Rainbow Rogues is operational across the City and Shire supporting pre-school children with disabilities and Additional Support Needs, together with their wider families. Specialist-inclusive sessions for children run three days per week and offer a safe play environment whilst providing essential respite for parents, carers and siblings of children with complex needs.
The Rainbow Rogues team offers professional knowledge and lived experiences in supporting families. The team works across educational, social, and health agencies playing an essential role in children's pre-nursery and primary school transition phases, helping their families identify the most appropriate learning settings.
Keri Craig, Manager at the charity comments:
We are reaching out to the communities across Aberdeen City and Shire to help us keep Rainbow Rogues open.
Covid-19 triggered many challenges for Rainbow Rogues but also highlighted the need for the services and support we provide for some of the most vulnerable families in our communities.
Rainbow Rogues acts as a vital link between families and educational, social, and health agencies, and we help our families navigate difficult funding, training and support landscapes. The families that use our services trust us, enabling our team to help them make informed decisions and tackle the challenges they face.
Amid the cost-of-living crisis, it is difficult to ask for money, but we're asking you to please help us keep Rainbow Rogues open for those who need us.
Rainbow Rogues' Family Support Worker Kim Stewart adds:
We have real concerns for the families we work with should the respite we provide stop - and the multiple channels of support we provide are no longer available to them.
The mental health impact is a considerable worry.
The charity does not receive any government or council funding. If you would like to make a donation, you can do so here.
Contacts -
Kim Stewart - Kim@rainbowrogues.org.uk
Keri Craig - manager@rainbowrogues.org.uk
If you would like to make a donation please click the link below
Another year, another lockdown!
After being placed in lockdown in March last year, we feel that we are in a great position to offer ongoing support to our families now we are in the same situation again.
We are ready to get back to one to one support, virtual meet ups and keeping our fingers crossed that it doesn't last as long this time round.
Unfortunately this latest lockdown does mean that we are not currently open to new admissions, but if you do know of anyone who needs our support, please reach out to us and we will do our best to offer some help.
In March, we decided to suspend our sessions due to the worsening situation surrounding COVID-19. This was a difficult decision to make as we knew it would impact the support we were able to offer our families. It was however the only safe thing we could do.
Rainbow Rogues continue to offer support in a way we have never done before. We moved to the online world.
We now hold regular Zoom meetings, made videos of storytime and songtime, we have been sending out regular care packs and keeping in touch by telephone.
It has been a very difficult time but we have managed to keep going. This has been down to the amazing staff we have who know the importance of their role in helping our families.
We have been lucky enough to have secured funding to help with the costs incurred by moving to this very different way of working.
Unfortunately our own fundraising efforts have been put on hold for the foreseeable future. We have had to cancel a number of fundraising events. This has had an impact on us getting out into the community and letting people know about the work we do for families in the area.
We do not know when we will be able to start our sessions again but we do want to let everyone know that we are still open for business. If you know of any family who has a pre-school age child with additional support needs and/or a disability who could use our help, please let them know they can contact us and we will support them in whatever way we can.
We have been overwelmed with the donations that we have received so far for our ASN Equipment Library. We have a great selection of sensory toys and equipment available to hire.
If there is something you would like to try with your child, please get in touch and we will let you know if we have the suitable equipment available.
To support us, you can buy directly from our Amazon Wish List, donate suitable equipment or make a monetary donation.
Rainbow Rogues managed to secure funding to help our families during this difficult time. With thanks to the STV Children's Appeal, we were able to put together Wellbeing Boxes to send to our families.
Every box was filled with goodies including arts and crafts activities, puzzles, toys, fudge and brownies and a shopping voucher.
It was a lovely treat for all the families and the happy faces in the photo shows that the children definately appreciated the surprise.
Thank you to the Jackson family who donated £30 to Rainbow Rogues. They have now left the area but are still fundraising on our behalf.
Rainbow Rogues were donated £360 recently from Co-op members who had chosen Rainbow Rogues as their nominated charity.
The money we receive will help us modify our garden to make it more wheelchair friendly and add some some fun activities for the children.
By joining the Co-op membership, not only do you receive 5p for every £1 you spend, your chosen charity will receive 1p.
If you would like to support us, simply click the link below and nominate Rainbow Rogues. The fund continues until October.
We were joined by Suzanne the Community Champion at Morrisons today who presented us with a cheque for £1,783 on behalf of The Morrison Foundation.
This money has been used to fund the Carers Emergency Packs that we recently produced.
For more information about these packs and how to get one, click on the tab for Carers Emergency Packs.
As the new term starts, we are once again at full capacity.
We have recently increased the amount of sessions we run and now have 4 each week during term time but despite this, we already have a waiting list.
We can only run additional sessions if we obtain funding, and it is obvious that there is a need for the support we offer.
We are committed to securing funding so that we can increase the amount of sessions we provide.
If you feel that your family would benefit from our support please get in touch and you will be added to our waiting list.
Everyone at Rainbow Rogues would like to send their condolences and thanks to the family of the late Mary Stewart who donated £314.30 from the collection at her funeral.
Mary was well known in Ellon and could be seen cycling round the town on her bike until a few years ago when she gave it up on doctor's order and traded it for a bus pass. She was then a regular on the buses to Aberdeen, Peterhead and Fraserburgh.
She was known to so many people and will be truly missed.
Join us on Saturday 21st December 2019 from 10am to 2pm at Esslemont School for some Christmas fun.
As well as access to our playroom with lots of toys and ball pit, we will have activities including make your own Christmas decoration or elf door at our arts and crafts station, guess how many sweets in the jar, tombola, lucky dip, shopping stalls, refreshments and our amazing raffle.
For more information on the raffle prizes, have a look at our Facebook page - Rainbow Rogues Ellon. Tickets are limited and can only be bought at the event.
Entry is free and everyone is welcome.
Please note that access to the school is from the Ellon to Pitmedden road only. You will see a sign saying that the road is closed, but the closure is further down the road so you can ignore it!
Rainbow Rogues we very generously awarded £1,667 from the Hammermen of The Seven Incorporated Trades of Aberdeen last night at a presentation ceremony.
This money will go towards funding an additional session which now brings our total to 4 sessions a week. With this extra session, we are able to support more local families.
Rainbow Rogues have been lucky enough to have been selected as one of the local good causes that will be supported by Co-Op.
If you would like to support us, either sign up or login to your Co-Op account and select Rainbow Rogues as your good cause.
As a nominated charity, we will receive 1% of the amount you spend on Co-op branded products.
It's a great way for us to raise the profile of what we do and make an investment back into the group.
Rainbow Rogues have received a funding boost from the Aberdeen International Airport Community Fund.
We have been lucky enough to receive £1,500 which will allow us to offer training in Makaton and Autism Awareness to the families who attend our sessions.
We are also looking forward to inviting some airport employees to join us at the training sessions.
Rainbow Rogues has been chosen as one of the organisations for the Green Token Giving Scheme at Asda in Peterhead.
If you are in store, please ask for the tokens and vote for us!
We are now hiring relief Play Workers to join our team.
Experience of working with children is preferred but full training will be given. Candidates will be subject to PVG checks.
The hours available are –
Tuesday 9am – 12pm
Thursday 9am – 12pm
Thursday 12pm – 3pm
We run our sessions during the school term only.
For more information, job descriptions and application forms, please contact Jude Scofield, Manager on 07549 383111 or jude@rainbowrogues.org.uk.
The closing date for applications is Friday 11th October 2019.
One of our parents, Anna Findlay raised £700 for Rainbow Rogues. Anna ran the Dyce Half Maraton and asked for donations on our behalf.
Well done and thanks from everyone at Rainbow Rogues Anna!
Both our Tuesday and Thursday morning sessions are now full.
We have limited space for our Thursday afternoon session which is from 12.30pm to 2.30pm.
If you are interested in attending, please get in touch with us at hello@rainbowrogues.org.uk to discuss your child's needs.
We are looking for volunteers to join us in the new term.
Do you have some spare time and would like to get involved with a local charity? Do you have a particular skill set that you would be able to use to help us? Would you like the opportunity to get some free training that might help in future employment?
We are looking for volunteers to help in a variety of ways including helping at fundraising events, IT skills, making items to sell at events and other general duties.
If you would like to find out more, email hello@rainbowrogues.org.uk
One of the benefits of attending Rainbow Rogues is the high staff to children ratio.
We deliberately keep the amount of children attending our sessions low so that each child can get the maximum benefit from attending our sessions.
We have therefore had to stop any further admissions to the Tuesday sessions as we are now at our full capacity for the staff to child ratio.
If you would like to attend Rainbow Rogues on a Thursday, please get in touch.
Our new term will start on Thursday 22nd August 2019.
Our sessions times are -
Tuesdays from 9.30 - 11.30 am.
Thursdays from 9.30 - 11.30 am.
Thursdays from 12.30 - 2.30 pm.
If you are interested in attending any of our sessions, please get in touch to discuss your child's requirements and we can discuss the best time to attend.
One of our supporters is running the Dyce Half Marathon on Sunday 11th August in aid of Rainbow Rogues.
Anna Findlay has been training hard and is looking forward to the challenge.
If you would like to donate to Anna's fundraising page, all donations would be appreciated.
We are delighted to announce that we will be attending the Me Too Magazine Conference at Prime Four, Kingswells on Saturday 10th August from 10am - 3pm.
There will be lots of information about the services and provisions available in the local area to help support families and professionals involved in the care of children with additional support needs.
There will talks throughout the day including Autism and Me, Power of Attorney and Guardianship and Benefits Advice.
John Clark Motor Group will be joining us with information about the Motability Scheme.
Admission is free and tickets can be reserved at Eventbrite.
Our waiting list for new admissions is now open. Sessions will be held on Tuesday and Thursday mornings from 9.30 - 11.30 and Thursday afternoon from 12.30 - 2.30pm.
If you would like to find out more about attending our sessions, please get in touch with us to discuss your child's needs and a suitable session for you to attend.
I was delighted to be presented with a cheque for £1,000 by Callum Robertson on behalf of St James’s Place Charitable Foundation.
This money will help Rainbow Rogues to continue in helping local families of pre-school children who have additional supports needs or disabilities.
We are delighted to announce that we secured £30,000 funding from the Udny Community Trust.
This money will enable us to increase our sessions to three times a week so that we can support even more local families.
We are also now in a position to provide respite care through 5 hour sessions during the summer holidays.
We would like to thank Neil, Louise and Max and Jack Ellis for their donation of £800 which was collected instead of presents for Neil’s 40th birthday.