Event childcare at Kidney Kids Annual Family Weekend

The Story

The charity, Kidney Kids Scotland support children with renal/urology illness. Kidney failure has no cure and so this is a disease that they need to learn to live with. Their work enables children to receive treatment with minimum disruption to the family unit and this support is spread across Scotland with everything from financial assistance to a listening ear. They have also provided much needed equipment and funded essential roles. The Royal Hospital for Children, the only hospital in Scotland to perform paediatric haemodialysis and Kidney Kids have supplied nearly EVERY haemodialysis machine there. 

The Challenge

The charity brings families together annually for a family weekend to meet others who are going through similar struggles and learn more about the children’s health conditions. The whole family is invited and the children range in ages from babies to teenagers. On the Saturday, they hold sessions with consultants and specialists and whilst the parents attend the information sessions the charity need the children to be cared for to allow the parents to fully take advantage of that time and give them the opportunity for respite and discussion with the professionals and other parents. 

Why Tinies?

Kidney Kids has been supported by Tinies Glasgow for a significant number of years. They book our service from one year to the next because they know that Tinies will always provide professional, experienced, and qualified childcarers.Tinies listen to their requirements and make sure that every family and child receive the best possible care suited to their needs. 

The Solution

As Tinies Glasgow has been providing this service for Kidney Kids for over 10 years and adapt accordingly to suit that year’s attendees. Through discussion with the clients, we can respond to their needs plus we ask the charity to provide us with registration details for all the children prior to the event. This allows Tinies to tailor the provision each year according to the ages and support needs of the attending children.  

We learned early on that a traditional creche facility does not work for the older children. They felt that they were too old for a creche, so we set up a separate chillout room where we provide more age-appropriate activities. Feedback is important to Tinies after the event too and we ask both our clients and the families (parents and children) for their input on what they liked and if there is anything that we can do to improve for the next year’s event.  

Karen McFarlane, Manager at Kidney Kids provided the following feedback: 

“As manager of a small charity Kidney Kids Scotland I cannot recommend Tinies highly enough. Tinies have worked with us for over 10 years in providing childcare at our annual family weekend. The children come from all over Scotland with some of them having severe and complex medical needs. Each and every child ranging from babies to teens are all extremely well looked after in a fun and caring environment. We are always so very impressed with how well organised, punctual and an excellent standard of professionalism shown by staff at all times.”