Sunderland children's charity Grace House expands to help adults

Grace House has been celebrating the launch of its new charity, Grace House Graduates, at their headquarters in Southwick.

The focus of the new charity is to support disabled people 18 years and over. Grace House has been working with disabled children and their families since 2003. Grace House Graduates will now offer help in three ways.

It will be a place where disabled people can come to socialise, will run a life skills and work experience programme and also assist young adults to adapt into other opportunities available to them.

The launch was happy affair with the current social group who are already accessing support from Grace House Graduates.

Tracy Harland's son Jack is among those to benefit from the initiative.

Tracy said: “I’m so happy that Jack will having someplace to come as he gets older as I was really worried about what he would do all day once he got older.

"Grace House has been great for him, and I want to see him continue to make new friends which he’ll get the chance to do with Grace House Graduates."

Another young person attending is Meg, 25, who has learning difficulties. She has used Grace House for a number of years for work experience, drama and now comes to its social club.

Meg said “I am so happy my time at Grace House can last a bit longer as I love coming here. I love doing new things and I hope I can carry on doing them at Grace House Graduates."

CEO of Grace House Graduates, Victoria Brown, said: “We really noticed there was a void when people turned 18 onwards and could no longer access child services and moved to adult services.

"Our disabled young people would often be offered social activities with much older people, and they felt there wasn’t enough out there for them.

"They also felt they weren’t prepared for the workplace or opportunities open to adults and Grace House graduates will bridge that gap and help a greater number of Sunderland residents who are disabled."

Grace House Graduates plan to open a non-residential day service for disabled people over 25. For more information, email [email protected] or call 0191 435 2088.