Brain Injured Children Trust

Brain Injured Children Trust is a nationwide service that currently supports over 100 families across New Zealand. Established in 1993, the Trust's mission is to improve the lives of children with brain injuries and their whānau by providing financial, emotional, and practical support where it is needed most.

Things can go wrong during pregnancy or childbirth and brain injury can occur. A child can be adversely affected by illness or traumatic brain injury as a result of a car accident, head trauma, or near drowning. In the past many of these families would have been given a limited prognosis for the future, perhaps not to expect their child to walk or talk. Today after 50 years of exciting research into brain plasticity it is known that the human brain is in fact extremely adaptable and recovery from brain injury is very possible if appropriate interventions/ therapies are applied and critical development takes place during the early years of life or as soon as possible post-injury.

Over the last 40 years, Neuro-Developmental therapy programs (NDTP) have been carried out with hundreds of brain-injured children, sometimes with remarkable results. Children who were unable to move eventually learned to walk and run. Speech, understanding, and social behavior improvements were observed. Manual dexterity improved, as did coordination and balance. Others learned to feed and dress themselves. Some have made it to mainstream school education, and some even on to university. Scientific research has confirmed that if appropriate interventions are applied and critical development takes place during the first few years of life, there is a positive effect on a child's future.

Considerable funding and support are required for the journey from injury to independence. Most often the journey involves an extensive range of rehabilitation and medical specialist treatments that are not covered by any other financial assistance. It creates an enormous financial burden for the parents already under significant stress. By removing some of these barriers that families face, the Trust can support our members to realise their child’s full potential.