There are lots of different ways that your school can support us, and enable us fulfil our vision of a world where no child has to suffer from arthritis. We've listed a few ideas below and we also have resources and information that may help you.
Charity of the year
Choosing Juvenile Arthritis Research as your charity of the year can show a real commitment for helping children and young people as we try to find a cure for this debilitating condition. By partnering with us, you can also help raise awareness that children and young people get arthritis, helping improve health outcomes and reduce long-term complications.
Newsletters
If you have newsletters, emails or magazines that are provided to parents, we can provide information about juvenile idiopathic arthritis. Help us raise awareness that children and young people get arthritis, and show that you are supporting our work. Our #ThinkJIA website contains information for parents and teachers to know what to look out for and what to do if they are concerned that a child may have JIA. We can provide a summary of this information as leaflets or digitally to be included in a school newsletter.
Assembly or class talks
Why not run a school assembly or class assembly explaining what juvenile idiopathic arthritis is and how it affects children? We have developed a Powerpoint presentation especially aimed at children that we can send to you. The slides come with full speaker notes, and can be used in schools, clubs and groups with both primary and secondary school aged children for an interactive presentation and discussion. You can access the presentation from our School Toolkit - request yours here.
Fundraising at school
Fundraising is a great way to get staff and students involved and raise funds for our work. There are hundreds of different things that could be done – a cake sale (perhaps a Bake-Off style competition?), an auction of promises, a read-a-thon, running, cycling, or sports events, a non-uniform day or talent show, or many other possibilities!
Jars for JAR
Our ‘Jars for JAR’ initiative is a simple fundraising idea to make it easy for each student or class of students to raise money for the JAR Project. By washing out empty jars and then collecting any loose change, it is easy to raise funds for the vital work that JAR does. See our Jars for JAR leaflet for more information (JPG).
JAR Day
One option is to combine a number of events into a single day – JAR Day. This could include a non-uniform day (with donations of £1 per child going to Juvenile Arthritis Research), combined with assemblies or class talks. This could also be linked to our Jars for JAR initiative. This helps raise awareness of juvenile idiopathic arthritis, raises funds to support our work, and makes the day standout as something different.
We can support your event
To support your event, we can provide awareness-raising bookmarks and stickers for the children in your school as well as leaflets about juvenile idiopathic arthritis for parents.
To request any of our resources for schools, including the Powerpoint presentation and awareness-raising resources please request your School Toolkit here.