Shooting Star Children's Hospice

The Shooting Star Children's Hospice (known as 'Shooting Star House') is a UK based children's registered charity. The charity provides palliative care and support for children and young people with life-limiting conditions.

The hospice, which is located in Hampton, London, 2 miles from Hampton Court Palace, consists of 10 children's bedrooms and 6 family rooms. Other facilities include The Hydrotherapy Pool & Spa, The Sensory Room, The Music Therapy Room and wet and dry play areas. Care and support is offered to children and families, free of charge, 365 days a year.

£3 million is required each year to run the hospice care services, which is raised mainly from voluntary charitable donations. There is no long-term statutory funding for children's hospices.

History

The Shooting Star Children's Hospice was founded in 1995 with the aim of "Enhancing quality of life, when every moment counts". There are up to 1,000 life-limited children, young people and their families in the western half of London and north Surrey who could benefit from the care services offered by Shooting Star.

The hospice was officially opened by Charles, Prince of Wales and his wife, Camilla, The Duchess of Cornwall on 21 February 2006, [cite web | url= http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4735356.stm | title= Charles opens children's hospice | work= BBC News | accessdate= 2007-07-08 ] although children were admitted to the hospice from August 2005.

In 2008, Capital Radio's Help A London Child Appeal supported the construction of an extension at Shooting Star House - The Cosmos Therapy Zone. This enables additional therapeutic services to take place such as play therapy, music therapy and relaxation therapies.

For further information, please visit www.shootingstar.org.uk

ervices

The Shooting Star Children's Hospice offers the following services to the children and their families:
* Short breaks
* Care in the child's own home and in the community
* Post diagnosis support and counselling
* End of Life care
* Bereavement counselling and support
* Advocacy to facilitate access to other services
* Support for the whole family

References

External links

* [http://www.shootingstar.org.uk/ Official website]
*UK charity|1047916|The Shooting Star Children's Hospice
* [Capital Radio 95.8 Help A London Child - The Cosmos Therapy Zone http://www.capitalradio.co.uk/charity/how-halc-works/christmas-appeal-2007-help-a-london-child/]