Buddies Background
Buddies Club Playscheme, now Buddies Clubs and Services was started by a group of parents in northwest Glasgow in October 1994. They started a Sunday afternoon play club for their children who have a disability, most aged five to ten. Because of their disabilities, the children were denied the freedom of any sort of play or peer interaction. Existence for most of them was school and home – social life nil.
Work done in a local church hall by parents, family and friends, was so successful that we moved to larger premises and started an afterschool Club three days a week.
Families were delighted: children’s lives were being enlarged.
With financial support from local government, Buddies began paying a few sessional workers. In summer ’95 we ran a splendidly successful six-week play scheme during the school holidays.
Soon Buddies became a Recognised Scottish Charity and a company limited by guarantee – all run by a board of parents and carers of the children who come to Buddies so eagerly.
Charitable status allowed us to fundraise more widely and the proceeds let us bring in more children, pay more staff and buy more toys and equipment.
Our first great fundraising success was our application to BBC Children in Need who gave a large grant in autumn ’96 spread over three years.
Building on this generous award, Buddies expanded yet again. In summer 2001 Buddies was on the move again – into more spacious premises in Netherton Community Centre, Anniesland, with more facilities to take more children and now young adults. In 2018 we were decanted into the Southbrae Centre which provided us with even more spacious premises, including a large garden space which all services are benefitting from.. It has often been said by anyone who steps foot into our new building that it looks as if it was built purposely for us.
Like everywhere else, the Coronavirus Pandemic affected our service but we kept going.
Although we couldn’t run our Easter club in 2020 we made changes to our service in order to run our holiday club again at a reduced service to comply with guidelines. Afterwards we restarted our Nursery services, Afterschool Services, Sunday Clubs and Youth Clubs.
Our Outreach service, which runs daily, was primarily out in the community participating in activities – with this out of the question we turned inward and had Outreach as a service within Buddies. With our large indoor space, and no other services running at the Main Services part of the building in the morning before Afterschool, and access to our spacious garden, we were able to sustain this throughout. Now, our service has returned to normal.
Our Youth Clubs are two nights a week. With our Youth Clubs, our young people have a chance and space to participate in activities and socialise with their peers.
Our Holiday Clubs, which run during the Easter, Summer and October holidays are back to our normal hours but they have been running throughout thanks to the hard work and dedication from everyone who makes our charity special.
After school runs five days a week during term time and the original Sunday club always has a wait list.
Adventure breaks and mini breaks were introduced and have always been popular when it has been possible to accommodate them.
A high percentage of our children and young people have Autism Spectrum Disorder. Although we are not an ‘Autism Specific organisation’ each service we provide is designed to meet individual need. We get to know our families before we offer services. We now have over 200 families using Buddies.
Our mainstream nursery now caters for 55 children from 0-5 years. A team of dedicated child development officers support our Nursery with seniors in each of the rooms (0-2, 2-3, 3-5) to help support our children. They are assisted and led by the Nursery coordinator.
The team is managed by Julie Cowan who manages both Nursery and Main Services.
The manager is overseen by the Chief Executive and the Board of Management which is parent led.
