After battling a financial crisis, Acorns Children’s Hospice has launched a Christmas appeal for more volunteers. Nick McCarthy meets some of the families benefiting from the charity

Whenever Nicola Cubbon arrives at Acorns Hospice her face lights up. The centre, in Selly Oak’s Oak Tree Lane, has been a lifeline for the 19-year-old who has battled a severe brain illness and epilepsy since birth.

Nicola and her family have relied on the staff, the facilities and their support since she started receiving respite care as a four-year-old at the centre in 1995.

“Acorns has been a total lifeline for the whole family,” her mother Lyn Cubbon explained.  “I live on my own and I was diagnosed with breast cancer three years ago. I relied on the hospice even more when I was undergoing surgery and treatment. They were fantastic.”

Mrs Cubbon underwent chemotherapy and radiotherapy for nearly a year when she was diagnosed in April 2007.

The 58-year-old from Solihull, was able to leave her daughter at the centre for 10 days at a time when she was in hospital herself.

She added: “I don’t know what I would have done without Acorns. I had no other real option when I was ill. I can’t leave Nicola with her grandparents because of her condition, but you are confident to leave her with the staff here.

“Now we come here every couple of months and she stays over for a few days twice a year.

“It gives me a chance to recharge my batteries and to get some sleep.

“There is no free time when you are looking after somebody 24 hours a day and when they do not sleep. It’s a bit like having to care for a baby forever.”

Nicola was diagnosed with the neurological condition Corpus Collosum when she was four months old after her mother noticed that she was not developing like she should have been.

Mrs Cubbon said Acorns had also given her the chance to spend some time with her eldest child Chris, who is now 25 and living in Devon.

“Bringing her here has given me a bit of my life back. It allowed me to spend time with Chris when he was younger and I can now go down and see him in Devon for a few days.”

Mrs Cubbon said Acorns brought some normality to the family after some people found Nicola’s condition difficult to deal with.

She added: “Chris was still at junior school when I had Nicola and some parents stopped talking to me at the school gates.

“It wasn’t because they were being mean, I just think that some people didn’t know how to deal with it. People who were friendly with me before tended to back off.

“I felt alienated and isolated when she was first diagnosed. That is also why Acorns is so important because it brings people together with something in common. Things have changed now and everybody knows Nicola in the village, but it was difficult in those early days.”

Another regular at the hospice is baby Muhammed Faizan Mahfooz, who was just five months old when he began visiting four months ago for emergency end-of-life care.

He suffered a freak fall at his home in Moseley and was left with severe hypoxic brain damage.

His mother Alia Tabasam said: “Acorns and the staff have given Faizan a new life. That is how I feel.

“I was at breaking point when we came here. But the comfort and the support that we have received here is just unbelievable. The welcome for my family is one of the big differences between a hospital and the hospice.”

Both mums have helped launch the Acorns Christmas Be a Star campaign, which is calling on people to donate their time as volunteers.

The Midlands charity is still battling back from the “most dreadful” financial crisis in its 25-year history and has urged the public to donate time, skills or expertise if they can’t hand over money.

The charity cut 10 per cent off its budget last year after £1.5 million of donations dried up in just six weeks at the end of 2008.

It still needs to raise £6 million every year to run its day-to-day services at its three hospices in Birmingham, Walsall and Worcester.

Acorns chief executive David Strudley said: “If you can donate cash then that is wonderful, but if not we can make use of your time, materials, efforts or skills.

“We know that times are very tough for everybody and this appeal is about asking people to think about volunteering as an alternative.

“We feel that we are in no way out of the woods from the financial problems we have endured, but we are surviving through the recession and the planned programme of Government cuts.

“We are holding our own and are on course to make a small surplus. We have taken some tough decisions and have lost staff, but we have not closed a single bed.”

Mr Strudley added: “When we add up the refurbishments that have taken place at our hospices this year at no direct cost to us they would have cost us £500,000.

“And the volunteers in the hospices alone are the equivalent of 20 full-time members of staff.

“We now have 1,800 people out there doing what they can for us in a variety of ways.

“We still have to raise huge amounts of money because 70 per cent of the £6 million that we spend every year comes from the general public. But the help that people can offer is just as vital.

“We have had people answering telephones, refurbishing the hospices and we even have a local firm coming out to decorate the Selly Oak Hospice.

“However people decide to support Acorns, they will be helping make Christmas very special for every child who comes to us.”

“Aston Villa have formally made us their charity partner and they continue to be wonderful in providing us with help, tickets, access to facilities, and visits from players.

“There has also been a substantial donation from their new shirt sponsor, FxPro.

“They have been brilliant and our relationship with the club is getting stronger and stronger.”

To find out more about Be A Star, visit www.acorns.org.uk/christmas  or call 01564 825091