AN urgent campaign has been launched to save a vital lifeline for families with disabled children.

Disability charity Scope runs a befriending service in Brighton and Hove which offers one-to-one and group support for scores of parents.

However funding for the service is coming to an end and the charity needs to raise £40,000 by October to keep it going for another year.

The aim is to raise £120,000 so it can continue until 2018.

The Face 2 Face scheme offers parents support from trained volunteer befrienders who also have disabled children.

Co-ordinator Amanda Mortensen said: “The beauty of Face 2 Face is that it builds up a parent’s resilience and their peer support network.

“As a befriender you remember what those times were like and just how difficult things are.

“For these parents, even just seeing you sat there gives them a sense that life does move on and things will get better.

“We’ve been here for two years now and become really embedded locally. It would be a massive loss for it to close – there’s no one else offering emotional support in the same way.”

Jen Crawley, 41, of Preston Park, Brighton, met her befriender Rosalind Howard, 51, from Hove, for the first time a year ago.

Her three-year-old son, Ben, has been diagnosed with autism and her family live in London.

She said: “Because I deal with everything on my own I was very uncomfortable at first, it made me feel really vulnerable. I was just so emotional, I cried a lot.”

However, after speaking to a neurologist and through support from Ms Howard, Ms Crawley has been able to cope.

She said: “You get to a point where you don’t see the autism really – he’s just cute and a bit wonky. Just in a really cute, different kind of way.

“When I got all the emotion out, there was such a relief.”

Ms Howard said: “It’s such a necessary service because otherwise it just means isolation. It’s not about saying ‘it’s okay, it will get better’. Just trying to make them feel better is not going to help. It’s about letting them feel and think and being there for them.”

To support the appeal, text BAHS05 £5 to 70070 to donate £5.