KIDS History

With over 40 years experience KIDS continues to work throughout England to provide key services which focus on developing every disabled child's abilities and potential.

Our founder John Mulcahy had a vision and passion for disabled children back in 1970. It is with thanks to his dedication and original inspiration that KIDS services and regions have grown into what they are today. You will soon be able to browse some of our press cuttings from the last 40 years. Mulcahy was determined that the charity's aims should always be based on three guiding principles: that parents should be treated as equal partners; that KIDS should work in conjunction with statutory services and that we should offer both practical and skilled support. It is an ethos that the charity still holds today.

Our KIDS Timeline page will take you through the key milestones in KIDS' history and will help you understand how KIDS has evolved. These start with the inception of home learning to the short breaks already provided at KIDS first holiday centre in Easton Maudit. These milestones have led to KIDS becoming the charity working with disabled children, young people and their families, regardless of their impairment.

Kevin Williams, chief executive of KIDS, reflects on how KIDS has changed the lives of thousands of disabled children, young people and their families:

“Our fortieth birthday gives us the opportunity to step back and examine how much has changed in the four decades since KIDS first began. KIDS has steadily expanded since its relatively humble beginnings as the brainchild of one man – a teacher who believed things could be done differently; who spoke to the parents of a disabled child in his class and began providing Portage services. We now work in eight regions across England, and our services span inclusive nurseries, playgrounds, Portage, transitions work, Parent Partnership Services, mediation services and short overnight breaks, to name a few.

Our growth means that we are able to provide crucial services to many more children and young people. We are particularly proud of the launch of Direct Short Breaks, a vital online service which helps us to reach more children than ever by providing desperately needed support for parents who might otherwise have struggled to cope, as well as giving disabled children and young people a chance to leave the house and enjoy themselves on a regular basis.

Our birthday also gives us a chance to reflect on the societal and political developments that have affected the disabled children, young people and families with whom we work. We believe that good progress has been made in some areas, thanks to initiatives such as Aiming High for Disabled Children and Every Disabled Child Matters. Although our language and our work is now based on the social model of disability, there is still a lot to do to change attitudes within society more generally, as our president Rosa Monckton highlighted in her recent BBC 1 documentary, which focused on hate crime against disabled people in the community. 

Despite all these changes, our vision has remained constant: a world in which all disabled children and young people realise their aspirations and their right to an inclusive community which supports them and their families.  We hope that in the coming years, despite the difficult economic context, we will be able to continue to play a part in improving inclusion through initiatives such as our training services, which have already delivered over 300 days of training since 2008.

In this time of austerity we recognise the value of working in partnership with the key players in the sector to ensure that disabled children, young people and their families are always at the forefront of the political and social agenda. As such, we are proud, in our 40th year, to be part of the Communications Trust campaign Hello, and will continue to work with the Council for Disabled Children, among others, as we lobby on behalf of those for whom we provide services. 

Moving forward, we will continue to focus on developing greater service provision throughout England, and have recently been commissioned to build an innovative adventure playground for disabled children and young people in Hertfordshire. 

We also hope to continue to expand and develop our services through working with smaller charities, such as KIDS Strut, with whom KIDS merged in 2010.  This approach has ensured a safer future for crucial services for disabled children and young people in Lincolnshire. As the financial environment becomes more difficult, we envisage similar partnerships will arise with other organisations who have broadly the same aims and goals as us, but who may lack the financial strength to survive. 

Finally, despite the many positive advances over the years, our 40th birthday sees us working in an environment where our most significant funders, local authorities, are tightening their belts. This will have a very real impact on our work. As we move into a new decade, we will increasingly rely on the generosity of individual donors who, by providing much needed funds, enable us to continue the work that we know makes a difference to people’s lives.  

I hope you enjoy reading these pages and learning more about our history, our work and, perhaps most importantly, the people to whom we have made a difference.  You can find out more about the work of KIDS by clicking here

                                                    

Girl celebrates in pink balloon hat and dark red jumper KIDS yellow balloon Girl in blue ballon hat ponders