Care Packages for Bunbury

Some babies are admitted to Neonatal Units for several hours and some for many months. This has considerable impact on parents, siblings, extended family and staff, a true ripple effect.

Each baby is unique, each stay is unique but for most it is totally unexpected. Being separated from your baby isn’t what was planned. The babies admitted to Bunbury Regional Hospital Neonatal Unit generally stay 1 to 7 days. Their parents may be feeling overwhelmed and isolated during that time.

We are pleased to announce expansion of our Care Package Program to Bunbury Regional Hospital 🎉 With thanks to volunteer delivery driver Sharni, each month BRH Neonatal Unit will receive 30 ‘Special Care Packs’ for distribution to babies admitted to their unit.

We are very conscious of expanding our programs in a sustainable way. It is thanks to the generosity of the community that we can continue to grow, and support more WA families each year.

Holt Rock Hoedown

The Westfield Country Music Club host The Holt Rock Hoedown in April and October each year. Holt Rock is located approximately 400km east of Perth (about 4 1/2 hours drive) and the Hoedown is hosted at the Strother’s Shearing Shed. This is a great family friendly event! A lovely mix of country and city people coming together to camp and enjoy some country music. We are thrilled to have been chosen as beneficiaries of this event. We would love to see lots of our families there, especially those in the region.

You can contact Robin on 0438 922 943 for more information or message through their Facebook page which can be found https://www.facebook.com/holtrockhoedown/

Dust off your cowboy boots and hats and practice your ‘yee-haw’!

HBF Run for a Reason

We’ve been participating in the HBF Run for a Reason as an organisation for the past 5 years and it’s always an excellent event!  We would love for you to run, jog, wheel or walk your chosen distance as part of our team on Sunday May 19.

This year we are hoping to raise enough to complete a special project we’ve been thinking about for a little while.  With several hospitals moving to Family Integrated Care (or similar) many parents are spending more time at hospital with their babies. Everyday 10 new WA families are thrown into the chaos that is the neonatal unit.

We’ve spoken with families, consulted with the hospitals, and they were wrapped with our plans! The funds raised from this years HBF Run for a Reason will directly fund items for 4 hospitals and include -

• several phone recharging stations

• creation of new milestone cards which will be downloadable FREE from our website

• several milestone card display boards, containing printed cards for parents to use and keep when in hospital

• several customisable ‘going home’ signs so families can take a photo when being discharged 

• microwave

• coffee machine

We’ve negotiated discounts and in-kind support, but to achieve all of this we need to raise $7,240.  We are so hopeful of surpassing this target, and extra funds will go straight into our Care Package program.

If you haven’t already signed up, take advantage of the early bird special and register to be part of our team. Choose ‘Individual’ then ‘I’m part of a team’. The team name is Tiny Sparks WA. 

We can’t wait to see you there!

Coffee Mornings February, March & April

Our monthly informal Coffee Mornings are a wonderful way to connect with the community. Each month we choose a new location to ensure as many people as possible are able to come to a gathering, not too far from home. Everyone is welcome to come along including parents, carers, extended family and Crafty Creators. Topics of discussion typically revolve around pregnancy, birth, the Neonatal Unit and the challenges that lay beyond.

RSVPing is not essential, but we do encourage you to do so via the Facebook event pages (click through the images below) so that we can keep an eye out for you. We welcome you to join us on:

• 18 February at 10am at Hatched Coffee Shop, Kingsley.

• 18 March at 10am at Whistler’s Chocolate Company, Middle Swan.

• 15 April at 10am at Lo Quay River Cafe, Wilson.

If you have a cafe you love be sure to let us know and hopefully we can add it to our roster for later in the year!

We look forward to meeting more of you throughout 2019.

Christmas in NICU

Spending Christmas in a neonatal unit can be incredibly tough on families. For many Christmas is a time to come together and make special memories. Most neonatal units in Western Australia have a ‘parents only’ visitation policy for infection control, and this means that siblings are often unable to meet their new baby brother or sister until discharge. It also means that families are split on special occasions such as Christmas. We know that many staff go above and beyond during the Christmas period to bring as much cheer as possible to their unit but it’s still challenging for families.

In 2015 we launched our annual Christmas Quilt Drive. This year we were once again successful in delivering Christmas Quilts to all babies occupying neonatal unit beds on Christmas morning in WA. This is only made possible through the generosity of the community! Thank you to all of our Crafty Creators who have put countless hours into sewing beautiful Christmas Quilts and Stockings for distribution. You really can see the love that goes into creating these keepsakes for families.

Each year we have been joined by the amazing family run Perth business, Foote & Flame, who have donated ‘Baby’s 1st Christmas’ ornaments for distribution with our quilts. Their support is phenomenal and to date they have donated a staggering 750 ornaments!

This year we delivered 255 Christmas Quilts to 24 different hospitals in WA. The bulk of them were delivered to Perth’s King Edward Memorial Hospital (KEMH) who have Western Australia’s largest neonatal unit.

It was wonderful to have the opportunity to share our Christmas Quilt Drive publicly through 10 News First (watch their story below), The West Australian and The Western Suburbs Weekly. Click through to read their articles. Huge thanks to each of them for helping us raise awareness in the wider community.