It’s been a busy few months here at The Sadie Bristow Foundation.
Things are ‘slowly getting back to normal’ and for charities it’s taking that little bit longer but we’ll get there.
It’s been wonderful to see people at some of the events that we’ve organised and at other allergy events.
What we’ve learnt recently is that people need to talk about allergies more and more and there are so many unanswered questions about life with allergies.
We’re making it our mission to find some of those answers. So keep in touch. Follow our social media channels, join our chat groups and join us at our in-person events and write to us at info@sadiebristowfoundation.org.uk
Together we can do this.

Clare & Stewart Bristow
x

Wilson UK Family Fun Day

We had a day of MinionX family fun on 12th June as part of the Wilson Family Fun Weekend.

We were one of 36 UK clubs taking part in this fun, free, ‘have a go’ tennis event.
People of all ages and abilities turned up for some MinionsX-inspired games under the expert guidance of Sadie’s Dad and Tennis Coach, Stewart Bristow everyone played well and most importantly – had fun!

It was a fantastic day with prizes, a raffle and a t-shirt giveaway plus…. there was an extra special surprise!
We are thrilled to announce that this photo won us the national Wilson social media prize from the day and thanks to them we received £250-worth of tennis gear to carry on our tennis coaching progamme.

Thank you Wilson!

Allergies & Anxieties

On Sunday, 26th June, Charity CEO Clare Bristow held a webinar with Jay Dhanjal, Master NLP Allergy Coach and allergy mum. Clare asked Jay all about her background, why she became an allergy coach and what it’s all about.

Speaking with an Allergy Coach can bridge the gap that’s missing between getting information on allergies and allergy management and how to take that on your parenting journey.

“If a parent’s anxiety is high I want to help reduce it,” Jay said:
“Learning how to rethink and adapt and handle things confidently helps you to come up with solutions. It gives you the strength to take back control of your life and recognise what your worries and challenges are and helps you to bring awareness to your thought and behaviour patterns.

“When worrying about allergies we’re often ‘stuck in one area’ with fear but by talking through those anxieties and learning new ways to think and react you can transform the fear into control. It makes me so happy to see people learn this. NLP can be as powerful as you want it to be.

“It scares me that parents are trapped in fear and that their children are too. I can help them become a better version of themselves.
“I love what I do. I’m an allergy mum myself so I fully understand what people are going through.”

Keep checking our socials for release of the full recording soon.

Allergy Education Evening

In June we held an Allergy Education Evening. It was an informal gathering aimed to help parents and educators find the best information on coping in classrooms with children who may have allergies.

Through education and training teaching professionals and parents can learn to be more empowered – and if teachers and caregivers are more empowered and confident then children will be too.

One way schools can be better prepared is to get their staff skilled-up with the latest in allergy training and there’s no one better than Natalie Hopkins from the Allergy Badge. Natalie is an accredited allergy training provider, having undergone extensive training herself when her daughter was born with complex allergies. Natalie guides people through all allergies and all methods of treatment and awards participants with a stamp of approval, an Allergy Badge, at the end.

We are working hard to communicate with schools that attaining an Allergy Badge is not only an easy and straightforward piece of training that will make staff feel more confident and capable in classrooms but it makes children and their parents feel more at ease knowing that schools are even safer places.

So far, thanks to your fundraising, The Sadie Bristow Foundation has been able to provide Allergy Badge training in two schools in Kent – that’s a total of over 70 staff primary school staff trained-up. Our dream is to be able to offer training to schools all over the country.

Allergy Testing

The right kind of extensive allergy tests aren’t available in the UK. Sadie’s Dad, Stewart, had to travel to Italy for answers:

“Having suffered with eczema all my life, from wheat allergies (which have most recently shot through the roof)
Inflammation is sky high from an array of products that were discovered only after being tested in Italy earlier this year.
Since that diagnosis by IBS has subsided and I have more energy and a great wellbeing.
Our youngest, April, recently has been suffering regular allergic reactions in various severity. Most recently it was a facial reaction to a nectarine.

So off to Italy we went and April has been tested.

WE need this process here in the UK or something similar. It’s about finding food inflammation and foods that can not be tolerated.
It’s time really that this all goes to another level. For our daughter’s health and everyone else with allergies.
Allergies affect your health, your wellbeing and the immense on ‘tenterhooks’ fear over what we can not eat and what it does to us is unbearable.

Can I change it on my own? No. Will I be heard? I will make sure of it.”