Baxter’s magic!
We love sharing the stories of our Ecas grant recipients. Baxter’s story is exciting and magical!
His Ecas grant helped fund his place on the Breathe Magic Intensive Therapy Programme.
The programme is an innovative intervention – incorporating specially selected magic tricks into an intensive bimanual and goal-oriented therapy programme for young people with hemiplegia.
Baxter attended the Breathe Magic camp for two weeks in August, followed by monthly calls with the Breathe team and the other participants. A further catch-up day in London takes place at the end of November.
We asked Baxter’s mum to tell us more…
Baxter was nervous on first day and somewhat teary but once I picked him up at the end of the day he was very tired but all smiles.
There were magic “helpers” who attended the course each day over the 2 weeks. These helpers attended the course when they were Baxter’s age and were there to offer support and share experiences of starting university, living independently, and dating!
This camp was the first time Baxter had ever met any other children who have had a stroke and have hemiplegia. He was able to chat to kids about the difficulties they face but more importantly forge friendships and build his confidence in an environment where it was a level playing field.
Baxter set goals about what he wanted to achieve during the course:
- Independent with toileting
- Tying his shoelaces
- Cutting up his food
All these goals are examples of tasks that many people take for granted but for Baxter they are challenging. By the end of the 2 weeks, he was able to do all these tasks with supervision only. We are continuing to work on them to enable him to do them more efficiently and confidently.
The goal of the programme was primarily about improving Baxter’s hand function and independence. More importantly, he came away from the programme with more self-belief, confidence, plus a support network he will continue to draw from over the coming years.
Many thanks for the Ecas support with funding this course for Baxter.
The Mackie family x
A BIG thank you
A big thank you to Baxter and his family for sharing his story and these great photos. They also sent us this link from BBC One Show coverage taken during the Breathe Magic camp Baxter attended!
Ecas grants
Ecas grants are for physically disabled adults and children, living in Edinburgh and Lothian.
Grants are available to meet the costs of items or services which you can’t access through welfare benefits and other sources.
Ecas grants have been awarded for many things including:
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- larger household items such as washing machines, fridge freezers, cookers, furniture and carpets
- IT equipment such as laptops and iPads
- power-packs retrofitted to manual wheelchairs
- student fees, sheds and holidays!