Elfrida Rathbone Camden Information

Elfrida Rathbone Camden is a multi-faceted voluntary organisation which has been delivering services in the London Borough of Camden since 1982. The organisation has 3 main areas of service provision: Work with young disabled people – centred around our educational work with young people with learning difficulties aged 19 – 25 we have also over the last year developed a volunteering project for young disabled people and a young disabled people’s participation forum. In partnership with the Camden Youth and Connexions Service we also support the 7 O’clock youth club for young disabled people. Family Support – ERC works in partnership with statutory services to support vulnerable children and their families; we have workers who spend part of their week based with Duty and Assessment Teams and in Children’s Centres. Those workers visit families individually but we also deliver structured parenting programmes and less formal drop-in groups for parents and carers to share experiences and get advice. In partnership with GP practices in the borough we are delivering an innovative pilot funded by DCSF to deliver family support to separated or separating parents and their children via Family Workers based in GP surgeries. Advocacy Services – ERC delivers support to help the families of disabled children/children with special educational needs to negotiate with, challenge and understand the systems which arrange educational provision for their children. We also have a Health Advocacy project for people with learning difficulties in Camden who need support to access primary care health services such as the GP, cardio-vascular and breast screening programmes– funded by the PCT Innovation fund we have recruited and trained a small group of service users to become peer health advocates