The Jane Dillon Bursary

To celebrate 15 years of helping young people and families to cope with major challenges in their lives, The Seeds of Change is launching an extremely personal initiative – The Jane Dillon Bursary.

The Jane Dillon Bursary will enable an individual or family dealing with trauma to benefit from a six week-long equine therapy course delivered from The Seeds of Change’s 17 acre outdoor learning environment – The Acorn Centre – in Walgrave, Northamptonshire.  Each programme will be designed specifically to support the mental, physical and emotional needs of the successful applicant and will be carried out by Katherine Dillon, Co-Founder and Director of The Seeds of Change, who has more than 20 years of expertise working in the field of equine therapy and is the beloved sister of Jane Dillon, to whom the bursary honours.

Jane Dillon was only days away from her 16th birthday when she tragically lost her life as the result of a childhood cancer. Older sister to Katherine, Jane always loved being outdoors enjoying the fresh air and lived in the village of Walgrave in Northamptonshire for most of her childhood.

The trauma for Jane and her family, before, during and after her illness had a broad impact on them as they struggled to come to terms with Jane’s death. Katherine, herself, was eventually diagnosed with post trauma as the impact of losing her sister at the age of nine took hold. Missing lots of her time in school due to illness, Katherine was introduced to horses and from that point on the healing process started.

In 2011 The Seeds of Change opened the doors to the Acorn Centre at Walgrave which was built and named in memory of Jane – a centre to help support children and families who are affected by all kinds of trauma and life-challenges. To date, several thousand children have been able to benefit from the work of this amazing and unique organisation, which uses horses to support them to progress within their lives with strategies that help them to cope with or overcome their traumatic experiences.

Katherine Dillon, Director of The Seeds of Change and Founder of The Jane Dillon Bursary, said: “Trauma and its long-term effects can be life-debilitating. My desire to help those experiencing grief, loss and trauma in their lives, burns as deeply within me as it ever did.  My hope is that The Jane Dillon Bursary will not only offer a small beacon of hope to some of the many families or individuals facing huge challenges in their lives, but, also, that it will keep Jane’s light burning bright.”

The application process for the January course is now closed. The next opportunity to apply for the Bursary will be advertised in the New Year on the website and in our newsletter – subscribe for our latest news here

 

Membership of the Fair Education Alliance

The seeds of change are pleased to announce that we have become members of the Fair Education Alliance.

This organisation with more than 200 members aims to tackle inequality of education across all sectors.

It has never been so important for those involved in educating children and young people to pull together to help close the gap of disadvantage and inequality in the education system.

The types of learners that we work with at the Seeds of Change represent across sectors of society who we believe are under-represented in these situations.

Many of our learners only attend school on a part-time basis and some are not in any kind of education at all. This means that they cannot be fairly represented when it comes to having a voice about the types of system that suits their needs.

We hope to give some of these young people a voice by joining with other educators to look at how we ensure all young people are able to access an appropriate curriculum to progress them in their lives.

During the pandemic, those children who live in the most deprived areas in our communities have struggled more in terms of their education than others. In years to come, this will result in a more divided society.

They may live in areas with poorer schools or may not have been able to access schooling so readily during the pandemic. The access to home-schooling and the digital equipment required to undertake this may not have been sufficient for their needs.

Many live in poverty where food is not always readily available and their home may not be suitable for home-schooling.

We are all aware of the mental health issues that the pandemic has bought about but for our children, many do not have access to the right kind of support.

We believe that access to an appropriate education is essential for every child. This does not just mean an academic curriculum, but also a therapeutic and supportive environment where they can develop strategies to support themselves in their everyday lives, putting them in a place where they can mentally focus on learning and not just surviving their everyday problems.

We look forward to being part of the Fair Education Alliance to be able to provide input about the needs of the learners that we work with but also to learn more about how other organisations are already working with young people and new approaches that we can embed into our work to ensure we offer them the very best chances to progress.