Claire Nolan

My name is Claire Nolan and I currently live in Prestwich.  I was born in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland but brought up in Salford.  Throughout my childhood I spent a good deal of time with the people who resided in the care homes my mother worked in.

I left school and trained as a hairdresser, and later moved into catering where I worked in various establishments until having my son, Joseph.  Whilst having a wide area of experience of people with additional needs, I was completely unprepared for what I had to face when it became clear my son had difficulties with communication.  I very quickly felt I had no control over decisions made for and about him and reeled from one situation to another.  I decided on impulse to visit the Re:d Centre and the rest, as they say, is history!  Within a few months I was not only part of the campaign to reinstate funding and community care packages; I was also a full Hurdles committee member.  Hurdles is a family support organisation that is based at Re:d Centre and in that role, I have provided advice and support to many families over many years.

During this time I enrolled on a course called Partners in Policymaking, and very quickly re-thought practically everything I thought I knew.  The course is a must for anyone with additional needs and their families.  It teaches you all you need to know to move forward and lead a successful inclusive life.  From there I went on to work for the Healthcare Commission, travelling the country auditing learning disability services provided by the NHS.  This later led to working with all the commissions on the Joint Commission Review.  During my travels I met a great deal of people and saw many types of services, it was most defiantly an eye opening experience.

For the last 5 years I have been a member of the Children’s Disability Partnership board along with leads from various departments within the authority.  This has been with the aim of ensuring families were involved in service development, and to ensure they were consulted in regards to any changes within service provision.  This has lead to work on the Aiming High for Disabled Children project within Bury with Liz Dyer from Bury Parent Partnership.  We prepared plans and bids to apply for this limited resource, and worked on finding someway to get a successful parents forum off the ground.  We were successful in achieving Phase 1 funds and our planned workshops started.

This pilot was very much a learning process, and has impacted on future course development with families having a large say on content, times and how they are run etc.  Phase 2 funding application has now been successful and so more workshops are planned.  During this period I gave birth to twins prematurely and spent several weeks on a special care unit, which has changed me on many levels.  All is now well and my son and daughter, Caleb and Evie are a welcome addition to the family.  I feel my various experiences have enabled me to relate personally to many families in a meaningful way.  I am once again going to be part of the Skill Building Workshops starting in September, and can’t wait to get more families on board.

Contact Claire on;     clairepnolan@hotmail.com