Happy Purple Day 2020!

Today I will be joining thousands of others around the world celebrating Purple Day from a socially acceptable distance.

What is Purple Day?

The aim of Purple Day is to start conversations about epilepsy, to raise awareness of the condition and to raise funds that will make a real difference to the lives of people affected by epilepsy.

WINS project

As a solicitor in the Child Brain Injury team, I have seen first-hand the effect that epilepsy can have on a young person’s learning and the huge practical difference that specialist support can make to their life.

That is why, this Purple Day, I want to start a conversation about the fantastic charity Young Epilepsy and their brilliant WINS (What I Need in School) project. More detail here.

It is well known that, without the right support, young people with epilepsy are much more likely to struggle in their academic life.  Young Epilepsy is working with young people with epilepsy, their parents and teachers to find out what they need support with and what type of support they would like in school.  The WINS project will enable Young Epilepsy to write guidelines for schools to support young people with epilepsy to achieve their academic potential.  I am really looking forward to seeing the outcome of the WINS project – watch this space!

This fantastic project is just one of the many reasons why we are so pleased and proud to be supporting Young Epilepsy for the second Purple Day in a row.  This year, I had hoped to support this amazing charity by holding a bake sale.  After the great Purple Day baking disaster of 2019 (Mary Berry, if you are reading this, please don’t click here),  I had grand plans to redeem myself with a 2020 Purple Day bake sale to end all bake sales, or at the very least, avoid burning the cake.  Unfortunately, that was not meant to be.

Instead, I’m going to drop my cake round to my neighbour and start a conversation about Purple Day and epilepsy through the porch door!