FIRE is Shine’s Youth Project for young people. It stands for Friendship, Independence, Resilience and Empowerment. At Shine, we want to support you as you grow into an adult in these areas, when it comes to looking after yourself with your health condition.
If you’re aged 13-25 and have spina bifida, hydrocephalus, or a related condition like IIH, then this is the place for you.
The name F.I.R.E. was chosen by our current youth members, and stands for Friendship, Independence, Resilience, and Empowerment - which is what the programme means to them.
Here you can:
The Youth Panel plays an important role in steering Shine’s F.I.R.E. programme, and members help to plan activities and events, share youth voice in campaigns, and help develop specialist resources and information.
Recently, the Youth Panel put together a training video for professionals - "Our experiences of spina bifida and hydrocephalus, and how professionals can support us." You can watch the video here:
Each month we run several group sessions on Zoom - F.I.R.E. South, F.I.R.E. Central, and F.I.R.E. North. Each session usually has a topic (recent sessions have included Mastermind, the Traitors, and ‘Me, Myself and I’) and there is plenty of relaxed chat as well. If you're interested in coming along, click here to let the team know.
At Shine we try our best to empower young people. Nevertheless we understand parents need advice and guidance too. We offer advice and guidance to parents, on all aspects of growing up with Spina Bifida, Hydrocephalus, IIH or a shunt. We also have the following support available:
