Mykidstime salutes the Irish Sudden Infant Death Association

In our ongoing series called Mykidstime Salutes, where we honour organisations or individuals making a difference to families or children, we take a look at the Irish Sudden Infant Death Association.

How long has ISIDA been going for and what are the main objectives of the charity?

The Irish Sudden Infant Death Association was founded roughly 40 years ago.  Our objective is to provide support and information to families who have been bereaved by the death of a child and to educate professionals in dealing with parents at the time of the death of their child.

Our aims are

• to offer support to families bereaved by the sudden unexpected and often unexplained death of an infant or young child up to the age of 7 years and to other affected by it
• to provide crisis intervention to creches, schools, and whoever is affected by the death of a child
• to raise funds to provide the above

What kinds of support do you give parents?

ISIDA provides a variety of support and information services provided by professionally trained staff.  We are currently running three Support Groups in Dublin, Limerick and now Cork. 

Our Dublin Support Group is held in the Beacon Hotel, Sandyford, Dublin 18 on the last Monday of the month.

The Limerick Support group is held in the South Court Hotel, Limerick on the last Thursday of the month and the Cork Group will be held in the Silver Springs Hotel on the 9th of August and will probably be the second Thursday of the month from now on. 

Our annual Family Support Day will take place on Saturday 29th September in the Radisson Blu Hotel in Athlone.

Our fundraising annual sponsored walk called the Barrow Walk will take place on 15th September.

We also have a Safe Sleep for your Baby leaflet which contains information on recommended practices which is available by contacting us on our website www.isida.ie or emailing info@isida.ie or telephone 01 8732711.

Tell me about the volunteer work that takes place at ISIDA

We have a number of people who are very generous with their time and run our Remembrance Services every year – we have five Remembrance Services in total in Dublin, Kilkenny, Tralee, Cork and Athlone. 

We sell our badges usually in September each year in various shopping centres around the country and have a number of people who very kindly sell them for us year after year. 

We have volunteers who have become Befrienders who are trained in listening skills.  Our Board of Directors are all also volunteers.

Besides helping with fund raising, is there any help that our readers can give to ISIDA?

Apart from supporting our fundraising efforts, we would appreciate people helping to raise awareness of ISIDA.  We offer speakers for professional and community groups as well as an information hotline for professionals on 087-2423777.

If you have any thoughts on ISIDA, share them in the comments below

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