The Pepper Foundation

Who we are

The Pepper Foundation raises funds to provide children’s hospice at home care in Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire. Since 1993, the charity has been ensuring that families caring for children with life-limiting and life-threatening conditions have access to essential clinical nursing care, specialist play services, and more recently, family days out too.

Children’s Hospice at Home Nursing Care

The Pepper Foundation funds at-home nursing care that provides specialist palliative nursing care to children and young people up to 19 years of age.

We work with two hospice partners, Keech Hospice and Helen & Douglas House, to deliver essential nursing care across Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire.

The Pepper Nurses provide care and support for each child in their own homes and are available to families all year round at no cost. Over time, Pepper Nurses become a regular part of life for many families and will often provide emotional support alongside nursing care.

All families receiving care have access to 24/7 advice.  This advice can mean that a family is able to manage a child’s symptoms easily at home, avoiding a stressful late night hospital visit. For children approaching end-of-life, the family’s choices about where they want to be are fully supported.  A 24/7 out-of-hours service is available to those families wishing to stay at home.

In giving children and families the choice to be cared for at home, surrounded by the people and things they love, the aim is to ensure their lives are as happy and comfortable as possible.

The Pepper Play Service

The Pepper Foundation believes that every child, no matter how severe their condition, should be able to experience the joy of play. This is why we created the Pepper Play Service, providing at-home play sessions with our Pepper Play Specialist.

Play is an essential part of any child’s development. For a child with a life-limiting condition, play can help them to develop resilience, educate them about their condition, and allow them to spend fun time with siblings, family and other children. Children with a life-limiting condition can have a lot going on in their home life as well as fitting in regular hospital visits, medical check-ups and therapies, so time made for fun is extremely important to their health and well-being.

Our Pepper Play Specialist has a collection of toys, games and sensory resources to suit all abilities and situations; play sessions are designed to be unique for each individual child and their circumstances. This may mean supporting a child who is physically active to develop new ways to play, or to support one with sensory needs.

The Pepper Play Service aims to enhance a child’s quality of life, support their development, reduce anxiety, and boost the whole family’s wellbeing.

Family Days and Social Activities

The Pepper Foundation also run a series of family events throughout the year.  The aim of the events programme is to give families the opportunity to spend time together, meet other families in similar circumstances, share experiences and stay in contact with each other if they wish.

Our aim is to provide an environment where families can attend events with suitable accessible facilities. This can include fun days out for the whole family, such as to the zoo or a specialist leisure facility, or sessions at an accessible soft play centre. We also arrange social events for parents, such as coffee mornings. All Pepper-run events are provided at no cost to the families, and if required we can even facilitate travel for those families with significant mobility challenges.

We want families to feel supported and have fun whilst making memories and friends along the way.