Portage Wins Charity Bands

Portage is one of StairSteady’s favourite charities and we particularly support the locally based Rotherham service. Portage is a home-visiting educational service for pre-school children with additional support needs and their families. The National Portage Association was established in 1983 to offer support and information to parents and professionals involved in Portage, and have been at the forefront of developments in support to very young children and their families since then. The Association became a charitable company in 2001.

Portage aims to:

work with families to help them develop a quality of life and experience for themselves and their young children in which they can learn together, play together, participate and be included in their community in their own right

play a part in minimising the disabling barriers that confront young children and their families receiving Portage services

support the national and local development of inclusive services for children

Through our involvement with this charity, StairSteady has become aware of the invaluable help and support that Portage provides to families within the community. Most services are reliant upon donations and funds raised through events and initiatives to maintain their work. Rotherham Portage Service recently entered a competition run by Steel City Marketing, who are based in Sheffield, and were the proud winners of 100 charity bands.

The charity bands are white with blue writing and have the words Rotherham Portage Service on them. Portage is offering a band for a minimum donation of £1 each to raise much needed funds for them to carry on their valuable work within the local community. StairSteady employees were amongst the first people to buy these unique bands! If you too would like to buy one of these bands or make a donation please contact Ruth on 0845 652 88 04. All donations will provide resources for the Rotherham Portage Service to help home visitors working with local families with children with additional needs. Please do what you can to keep this important service going.

Sponsered Walk

Yesterday I did a walk with my mum for Portage.
Portage is Portage is a home-visiting educational service for pre-school children with additional support needs and their families.
The first such scheme was developed in Portage, Wisconsin, USA in the early 1970's to meet the needs of the young children living in rural communities. Since its introduction in the UK, the success of the approach has lead to an increasing number of services being developed nationally. There are now 140 services registered with the National Portage Association in Britain.
The aim of Portage is to support the development of young children's play, communication and relationships and to encourage full participation in day to day life within the family and beyond the home. Portage services are committed to securing inclusion in the wider community for all children and families in their own right. Support offered through Portage is based on the principle that parents are the key figures in the care and development of their child and Portage aims to help parents to be confident in this role whatever their child's needs may be.
In order to do this the Portage Home Visitor works alongside parents offering practical help and ideas to:
make learning fun for all the family;
encourage a child's interests;
and address problematic situations.
In Rotherham the Portage workers salaries are funded, but other outreach activities aren’t. So yesterday I did a sponsored walk around the children’s centre in Rotherham with my Mum, it was a really nice day (apart from the weather was horrible, very wet!). We managed and hopefully we will have raised a lot of money for the service. We walked about 11miles, I never realised that Rotherham was that hilly!!!!