Courses for children and young people

We are very excited to offer a full range of courses in 2023!

What happens on a course?

Do you fancy abseiling in your wheelchair, racing your friends in a canoe, relaxing with others by the campfire toasting marshmallows, or exploring a new city? You can give all these things a go on one of our residential activity courses.

Whatever your level of injury, every Back Up course gives you the chance to:

  • Push yourself and be more independent from your family
  • Do something you never thought possible like soaring through the trees on a zip wire
  • Learn new wheelchair skills, like a back wheel balance, from other people with spinal cord injury
  • Make friends for life
  • Feel more confident to get on with life and do what you want to do.

Find out more about our under 13s activity course,  13-17s multi-activity course & the Youth City Skills course.

Get involved in our Youth Forum (just add Ella on Facebook to be invited into the group) and hear from other children and young people with spinal cord injury who attended our courses. They were anxious too, it’s a big deal travelling away from home and meeting new people. They want to offer support by explaining how they dealt with the worries and how the course changed their lives for the better.

“I really enjoyed learning about Back Up. I learnt new skills like how to flick my wheelchair casters up and do a back wheel balance. I’m using that skill all the time back home in Scotland as it’s pretty rugged ground! I can get up and down curbs too. It makes me feel pretty good as I’m more independent.”

Hollie, 15

Contact

To learn more about our services for children and young people with a spinal cord injury, please visit our other pages in this section.

You can also register for our children and young people services online or call the team on 020 8875 1805.

Interested?

You can apply online by clicking the following links:

Course Donation

Back Up relies on the generosity of individuals and companies to fund our programme of courses. Each year we ask all course participants to make a suggested donation towards their course place.

We do understand however that everyone’s circumstances are different so making a full donation isn’t always possible. Please don’t ever let money concerns stop you from applying for one of our courses. We never allocate or refuse a course space based on your ability to make a donation.

The following recommended donation is roughly a third of the actual cost of each space:

Under 13s Exmoor – £700

Youth City Skills Bristol – £550

Under 13s Lake District – £700

13-17s Lake District – £600