Ye Olde Bargate Lodge.

Liberty Child provides free holidays for children and young people with disabilities, physical and mental. Since 2001, thanks to the amazing generosity of our benefactors and volunteers, Liberty Child has been able to take over 80 very special kids on free holidays.

 

Liberty Child Holidays

A Liberty Child holiday often provides the kids with their first taste of independence, and a chance to get together with other kids of the same age. The children’s parents and carers also get a very important and much needed break, confident that the children are well looked-after and enjoying a holiday in a safe environment.

On this site, in History & Holidays you will find more information on the holidays we ran in 2002 to 2008 and in Holiday Information, details of the holidays we have planned for this year and who can apply to come on the holidays as a guest, together with a Guest Booking Form.

In Info for Volunteers, you will be able to find out more about volunteering with Liberty Child and an application form.

If you want to find out how to help us raise money to provide the holidays, go to the Supporting Us page . Finally, as part of our commitment to transparency, we have our policies and Companies Act registration in the Download section, together with all the documents available for download.

Objectives

Our Objective, as stated in our constitution, is:

To provide relief and support to persons, especially children and young people, with physical or mental disadvantage or disability or special needs, and their families and carers, in particular by providing holidays and breaks, and the financial support for such support, holidays or breaks where necessary through financial need, and all activities associated with providing, funding, or developing from, such activities and any other charitable activities.

Meeting the needs of kids and their carers

Liberty Child provides free holidays for children and young people with disabilities, physical and mental. Liberty Child pays the cost of the holiday from funds it has raised for this purpose. We help two groups of people:

The Kids

We enable children and young people with disabilities to enjoy a week’s holiday away from their routine and usual environment. We provide a full programme of recreational activities, for instance, trips to the beach, swimming sea, trips to the beach, funfairs or the circus, local places of interest, fishing, concerts, group singing, outdoor and creative activities. The aim is to provide the children with the same sort of holiday as other children enjoy, working to ensure that any disability is no obstacle to this. In doing so, we also hope to raise the expectations of the children as to the services and standards that they are entitled to receive as they grow older.

We take children with a range of disabilities, according to the demand, the facilities available at the relevant holiday centre and the number and quality of the volunteers available.

We seek to ensure that the holiday takes place in a secure and safe environment, where care is be provided by trained and understanding volunteers and appropriately qualified team leaders, as necessary.

Their Carers

The holidays provided for the children also allow their carers (often their family), the opportunity to take a break from their routine and responsibilities with confidence that their child or young person is enjoying a holiday in a safe and caring environment. The social services department of the local authority has many families with a child who is disabled and which they say are in urgent need of such respite, benefiting the family and the child.

Where possible, we aim to provide introductory sessions before the holidays for those parents and carers who want to meet directors and volunteers of the charity, other carers and other children with disabilities, so that they can understand what is offered, who will be providing the care and ask any questions they may have.

Your Input

Liberty Child is a charity that is driven by both volunteers and users; we value your input and ideas. If you have any comments or questions, please use the contact details in the last section to pass them to us.

Updates: If you would like to receive updates from us on the holidays, our fundraising or volunteer opportunities, please register using this link.