CICS
Charity Registered Number 1097619
Professionals can give you medical and practical information and advice about cochlear implants, but they do not live with the children twenty-four hours of each day, and cannot provide the emotional support which other parents can. In the areas of living with, and bringing up children, the parents are the professionals.
As parents of two of the very first children to have cochlear implants in the UK, Tricia Kemp and Marian Batt set up the Group in 1992 to provide an element which they felt had been missing from the overall programme - parental support for parents by parents.
CICS aims to:
- Provide support at any time before, during or after a child's cochlear implant
- Provide first-hand experience of the impact of an implant on family life
- Link parents geographically, regardless of the location of their Implant Centres
- Link families of children with similar medical histories, eg Ushers Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy etc.
- Offer practical help with everyday problems, eg suggestions as to how the processor can be most comfortably worn by young children
- Give help with those irritating problems which seem too minor to take up with an Implant Centre - the chances are that other families will already have had similar experiences
- Provide ideas about day-to-day rehabilitation within the family setting
- Advise parents, via the CICS Mailing List, of relevant information days and opportunities for contact with professionals as well as with families
- Provide national and international pen pals for older children
"OUR MUMS ARE ONLY A PHONE CALL AWAY!"
Details are available from:
South
Tricia Kemp
Hopedene
4 Ranelagh Avenue,
Barnes
LONDON
SW13 0BY
Tel: 020 8876 8605
Midlands
Carmen Burton
32 Grosvenor Street
DERBY
DE2 8AU
Tel: 01332 365528
North
Deborah Faithfull
Apple Tree House,
6 Westfield Drive,
Appleton Roebuck,
YORK
YO23 7EG
Tel: 01904 744639
E-mail: info@cicsgroup.org.uk