Anne Barnes

Supporting parents of disabled children following the diagnosis of their child by co-ordinating a befriending service of volunteer parents.My passion is to empower other parents of disabled children to accept and enjoy the different life path that their children will take them on. I co-ordinate the Face2Face befriending scheme in Birmingham it was my dream that there should be a branch of this scheme here since 2003 in 2007 this dream came true after we had secured some funding for training myself and 8 other volunteer parents. After 40 hours of training (and some emotional soul searching) we were all qualified befrienders. Since then a further 19 volunteer parents have been trained we all have disabled children and we all want to make the emotional journey following a diagnosis an easier path for parents in the future.Knowing that we can make a real difference is amazing!