Information for Parents and Carers

You can download our leaflet for parents by clicking here

What is SNIP?
SNIP is a voluntary organisation based at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh.  It is managed by a committee of parents of children/young people with additional support needs, and professionals.  Most of the staff at SNIP are parents of disabled children.

What does SNIP do?
There are three main areas of our work :

• Giving information, advice and support to children and young people, their
   families and the professionals who work with them
• Providing training for people who work with children and families
• Talking to people who run services about what families need

What can SNIP do for me?
SNIP can offer you emotional support to deal with how you might be feeling and on a practical level we can help you to manage better some of the tasks that you have, such as :

• Preparing for meetings about your child
• Writing letters or reports about your child
• Applying for funding and benefits
• Talking to professionals about the support your child receives

We can also provide information about things that might be affecting your child’s learning, such as :

• their impairment
• learning difficulties
• life events like bereavement or family breakdown

Other things we can provide include

• Advice about accessing play, leisure and sport activities for your child/young
person
• Groups that might offer support with the chance to meet other parents

Providing advocacy
All parents have to deal with a range of issues relating to theirchildren, however, when your child is disabled, has extra support needs or is ill you may have an added set of worries and responsibilities. Some of these responsibilities require you to be very organised and to become involved with processes and systems which can be unfamiliar and complicated.
You may find that a situation to do with your child is too difficult to manage on your own, and that you find things that you can ordinarily manage feel challenging.  This can be depressing and frustrating for you. SNIP can offer a particular type of support when situations with your child feel stressful.  This is called advocacy, and SNIP offers two kinds of advocacy.

Self-advocacy
This is when you are supported to feel more confident to speak for yourself.

Independent professional advocacy
This is when a worker speaks on your behalf about your issues and concerns with other professionals such as doctors, social workers and teachers. The worker must be trained in advocacy and have your informed consent to speak for you.

With both kinds of advocacy SNIP Information & Advocacy Workers will :

• listen to you
• ask you questions about your situation and identify with you what your priorities are
• identify what steps you wish to take

If you decide that you want SNIP to speak on your behalf and advocate for you then we can discuss how to take that forward.
Just as some parents may need advocacy, some young disabled people may need it too. If your child is aged 14 and over, they
can speak to the Young People’s Information & Advocacy Worker, who can offer them support including advocacy.

We have two leaflets about this service called ‘SNIP advocacy‘ and ‘Advocacy for young disabled people’ that we can send to
you. You can also call us to talk about this service.

If your child is in the hospital and you would like one of us to visit you, we can be contacted on extension 20583. We can also
meet you before or after an outpatient appointment.

With your permission, any professional working with your family can also ask us to contact you directly.
We also give talks to parents at Children & Family Centres, Nurseries and Schools.  If you belong to a group and would like
to hear about our services, we would be happy to come and meet with you.

What if I don’t have a particular question?
Part of our service is to be a ‘listening ear’ for parents, so don’t worry if you aren’t sure how we can help you. We are happy to
listen and have a chat.
 

Membership of SNIP
You might want to become a SNIP member.  Members get our regular newsletter and can attend and vote at our Annual General
Meeting.

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