Charity Spotlight: Tiny Tickers
Each month, we highlight a charity that is working to make our communities better. This month we talked to Tiny Tickers, whose aim is a better start in life for UK babies—as many as 1 in every 125—who are born with a congenital heart defect. Only one-third of major heart defects are spotted during pregnancy, and another third are picked up in standard newborn hospital tests. Terrifyingly, that means every year around 1,000 newborns are sent home from hospital with no one realising they are suffering from a potentially life-threatening condition. Working with families and medical staff, Tiny Tickers endeavours to improve these statistics. WLM asked them to tell us more about their efforts, just in time for the start of Heart Week.
Tell us about the charity.
Tiny Tickers is a small national charity that aims to improve the detection, care and treatment of congenital heart disease (CHD) in babies.
When CHD is detected during pregnancy, babies get treatment from the first possible moment—and early detection is shown to greatly improve their chance of survival and long-term quality of life, and lowers the risk of side-effects of heart failure, such as brain damage.
Tiny Tickers provides specialist training to health professionals and sonographers so they are better equipped to identify a heart defect during a pregnancy scan. We support parents and families dealing with a diagnosis, and we raise awareness of heart defects in babies so that parents know what signs to look out for.
To really understand what we do, and why we do it, it may be best to tell you about Robbie.
Robbie was born with tetralogy of Fallot—which basically means that his heart had a series of structural abnormalities. Thankfully, a sonographer spotted the anomalies during Robbie’s mum’s 20-week scan, meaning that, on delivery, Robbie was immediately transferred to the neonatal intensive care unit and put on a prostin drip to ensure blood flow to his lungs. After nine days the drip had worn off; Robbie deteriorated and turned blue. At ten days old he had emergency surgery to place a shunt; then, at five months old, Robbie had heart surgery to repair his tetralogy of Fallot. He is now a happy and healthy little boy!
As Robbie’s mum, Hollie, puts it, “If Robbie’s 20-week pregnancy scan hadn’t spotted anything, we might have taken him home none the wiser. And, if he’d deteriorated at home, he probably wouldn’t have made it—the nurses told us that. We were lucky. Every now and again I just sit down and look at him and think, ‘you shouldn’t be here’. Robbie is our little miracle—we couldn’t be prouder of what he has achieved. It still amazes us that the sonographer spotted he was poorly. Early detection really is life and death.”
What is Heart Week?
February is National Heart Month and Tiny Tickers are promoting Heart Week from the 7th to the 14th of February 2015. Heart Week is a chance to join together to help babies born with congenital heart defects by raising vital funds. We are very lucky to have the support of some great partners, including Swizzels Matlow Love Hearts sweets—a blast from the past!
Tiny Tickers has ambitious plans for 2015 to help more babies with heart problems, but we can only do this with your help. We are asking the UK public to organise a fundraising event or donate a small amount to Tiny Tickers. The funds raised will support our work in training more health professionals and giving support to more families dealing with a diagnosis of heart defects.
We have lots of ideas for what you can do to raise funds, from dress-down days to the Tiny Tickers and Love Hearts ‘Guess How Many Sweets in the Jar’ game. Our Heart Week 2015 toolkit has everything you need to get you started. And remember, every penny counts, so anything you can raise will be gratefully received. We are only a very small charity so the impact you can make is huge.
To get your free Heart Week pack, including your Love Hearts ‘Guess the Number of Sweets’ game, register at www.tinytickers.org/heartweek!
What are your funding sources?
We are a small charity and the majority of our income comes from our lovely supporters, trusts and corporate partners.
What obstacles does your organisation face?
The biggest challenge for a charity like Tiny Tickers is getting our name out there—there are so many worthwhile charities who are all doing amazing work! But we are growing and our supporters are fantastic at helping us build our network through social media.
Do you hold fundraising or other events throughout the year?
This year is the first year we have run Heart Week, but it will now become an annual focus for us. We have lots of plans for other events and campaigns for our supporters to get involved in throughout the year, so watch this space!
How can people get involved?
There are lots of ways to get involved, from joining Team Tiny Tickers for one of our running events, to doing the Big Heart Bike Ride in Tanzania for Tiny Tickers next year! See our list of challenge and running events on our website.
Tiny Tickers couldn’t continue our work without the crucial support of our donors—please do consider making a donation at our website www.tinytickers.org.
We are also looking for keen volunteers to help us in their local community, and we are looking to develop partnerships with businesses and other organisations. Please get in touch if you want to know more!
