Wiltshire charity helping children with life-limiting conditions in urgent need of donations

• Watch Caron Bell's report

A Wiltshire charity which helps children and teenagers with life-limiting conditions is making an urgent appeal for donations after falling victim to the cost of living crisis.

Julia's House in Devizes says it could see donations drop by 35 percent this year at a time when demand for its services is increasing.

For the Tilley family from Westbury, a trip to the children's hospice is something they all look forward to.

Josselin is severely disabled and this is the one break her parents get from non-stop care.

The 16-year-old's parents, Karen and Lee Tilley, said: "She doesn't eat or drink anything orally, and she has issues with her breathing which means she's fully dependent for all of her care needs.

"She doesn't walk or talk so she does need round-the-clock care.

"At the moment we don't get any support with looking after Josselin at all.

"The only break we get is from Julia's House. I really like it"

Julia's House helps around 200 families across Wiltshire and Dorset and the charity gets just eight per cent of its annual budget from the Government. It means the charity is left to raise four million pounds a year by itself.

Josselin’s 10-year-old brother, Dalton, also benefits from visiting.

He said: "Whenever I come here I go on the Xboxes, I do games, they have little powerwheel cars that I go in.

"We do games like tag and stuff and we find different activities to do, like Lego.

"I really like it."

Karen was supported by her husband Lee, until a bout of Covid in 2020 permanently damaged his health. The charity's deputy CEO, Mike Bartlett, said: "You feel like you're different to everybody else and you sometimes feel like you're constantly fighting the system. So it's good to have somebody that is on your side."

With a cost of living crisis, managers are bracing themselves for a perfect storm of rising need and falling donations.

"We know that people have less money in their pocket. The demand on our services is increasing," he said.

"We are getting more and more referrals of children, children with complex conditions. And there's also the financial stress on families at the moment.

"And we are doing more and more to support those families with counselling, with grants, with benefits advice.

"Demand is just going to keep going up and up and we know that we're going to have less money coming in."

The future of support services such as Julia's house are becoming less certain as a result of the cost of living crisis.