Steve Palmer's blog about his son Stanley - who has Down's Syndrome - & the extended family.

Sunday, 28 October 2012

1/2 Marathon update


Two hours, 15 minutes and 39 seconds. OK, the picture looks bad. I was multi-tasking, uphill. 
I do hope that anyone working in maternity and midwifery services will look at the excellent page about training - to know what to do when a child with Down's is born - Tell it Right Start it Right.

It's Royal College Of Midwives (RCM) registered. 

"I feel much better prepared to provide information and support regarding Down's syndrome."

Saturday, 6 October 2012

1/2 Marathon - Don't pay me - but click this


TELL IT RIGHT, START IT RIGHT

It has to be said that the way the hospital where Stan was born didn't deal with his Down's Syndrome diagnosis well.

He's 10 now so I have no idea what it's like for new parents these days - I hope it's better than our experience - but in fact I don't have to hope, because there's a great training scheme for maternity units, midwives, ante-natal staff  and anyone involved in bringing children like Stan into the world.

So I'm running a half marathon on 28 October and I'm saying "Don't pay me anything; just go to "Tell it Right, Start it Right" - and get as many people who work in maternity to do so, in case they feel they could do with this fantastic training scheme from the Down's Syndrome Association. It's accredited by the Royal College of Midwives and in the last year, over 350 staff have been trained up. Staff are given up-to-date, accurate and balanced information about living with Down's syndrome in 2012, along with the vital issue of how to improve the way that parents are told that their child has Down's, or if they find out during pregnancy, will have Down's. 

We were told in a very poor way and left to cope. But that experience only proves that specialist training is sometimes valuable.
 
So, do pass the web page onto any maternity staff you know of. Let's see if we can get lots of page hits for the Down's Syndrome Association's training page. I'll run to that...........

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