Childrens Chronic Arthritis Association - CCAA

09/10/2026

As we head towards World Arthritis Day on 12th October, please can we wish Good Luck to an amazing Fundraiser this weekend.
Dave is running in the Chester Marathon in his CCAA Running Vest to raise awareness that Kids get Arthritis. His daughter Zoe has JIA and they recently attended one of our Family Support Weekends.
Good Luck Dave and thank you so much for your support to CCAA. We are very grateful.👍❤️
🏃‍♂️🏃‍♂️🏃‍♂️🏃‍♂️🏃‍♂️🏃‍♂️🏃‍♂️🏃‍♂️

Help David Brizell raise money to support CCAA Kids with Arthritis

05/10/2026

⭐️MONDAY BADGE STORY ⭐️

Our special mention this week is for 9 year old Cayden for his award! Well done Cayden!

Cayden was nominated for his award by his Mum who told us that Cayden has started being more confident about his diagnosis and will share his experiences with others. She also told us that even though he doesn't like having his blood tests or injections, he is now very good at having both done without running away. 👏This is a major step forward and one that we know will resonate with many of the families we support.

If your child could do with a boost for the effort they put in to their JIA treatment then please do nominate them and we would love to send them an award! Every first award comes with a lanyard to collect the badges on and when you collect 8 awards, you can apply for a special medal to hang on the end! We know lots of families are getting close to their medals and we are looking forward to sending those out to them!

https://www.ccaa.org.uk/ccaa-award-badges/

04/10/2026

RESEARCH OPPORTUNITY - additional capacity!

We are excited to be able to offer 5 more families a very creative and fun research opportunity with Ursula Ankeny, a Design Research Fellow and Product Designer working with Sheffield University.

Ursula is interested in figuring out what products might help children and young people living with JIA. She recognises the unmet need for products especially designed for this age group. She aims to work with children and their families to design, trial and disseminate some products! There are online or in person opportunities available so it does not matter where you are based.

If you think your child may enjoy getting involved in this, for more information or for any questions please contact Ursula directly as soon as possible either via the QR code on the image or via email at [email protected]

Happy designing!

03/10/2026

And a few more of the amazing activities they took part in. 👏👏👏🐧❤️ We were very PROUD of you all.👍

03/10/2026

A selection of photos from our fantastic Family Support Weekend last week.👍❤️🐧
All the children were amazing here's a few of the activities they took part in. Well done and Congratulations to all.👏👏👏👏👏👏

03/10/2026

Opportunity for young people aged 13-19 and/or their parents to join an advisory group!

All details on the flyer attached. One of our CCAA volunteers has met with Catherine through our work with the JIA Champion group and can confirm she is incredibly committed to ensuring that she takes advice from young people about how this moves forward.

Catherine has funding to thank advisory group members for their time with vouchers. She will confirm the details with the group before the first session.

02/10/2026

❤️🐧FRIDAY FUNDRAISER🐧❤️
Good Luck this weekend to Cat who is running in the Cardiff Marathon to support CCAA Kids with Arthritis. Her niece Eden was diagnosed with JIA at 18mths, so she has chosen to support us. Good Luck Cat, hope it goes well. 🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️
Thank you for your support. 👍❤️🐧

Help Cat Rees raise money to support CCAA Kids with Arthritis

01/10/2026

New £50M research centre targets cures for inflammatory diseases!

We wanted to bring you news from last week that is very relevant to our community about the announcement of a large £50 million award from the Medical Research Council (MRC) to fund a MRC Centre of Research Excellence (or CoRE) in Restorative Immunology.

The ambition of the CoRE is to achieve lasting freedom from immune-mediated diseases like JIA. The teams from University of Birmingham, Kyoto University, Newcastle University, University College London, University of Bristol, University of Cambridge, The University of Glasgow and University of Oxford will work together to understand what causes these diseases and develop new treatments targeting their causes, rather than simply controlling their symptoms.

CCAA volunteers have been involved in other research studies and grant applications which have helped build the case for this exciting initiative. The work will include children, young people and families and we will continue to bring you any updates and developments from the teams involved.

You can read more about the award and the work planned in these two press releases:

https://www.ukri.org/news/new-50m-research-centre-targets-cures-for-inflammatory-diseases/

https://www.gosh.nhs.uk/news/researchers-funded-to-cure-inflammatory-disease/

MRC is investing £50 million in a new centre investigating chronic inflammatory diseases, which place a major burden on patients, health services and the economy.

29/09/2026

!!Last chance to have your say before it closes!!

Uveitis Survey 👁

Dr Lola Solebo and Dr Sonali Dave are looking into screening tools for uveitis and how local services and AI might be helpful to make things more convenient for families.

They would LOVE to hear your thoughts about how uveitis screening is done for children and young people.

At the moment, these checks usually happen in hospital, every two to four months, where doctors look into children's eyes. A newer type of imaging, called AS-OCT, is being explored and has been shown to be accurate and objective. It could mean that screening happens closer to home, reducing the need for regular hospital visits. The images can also be reviewed using artificial intelligence.

If you're happy to share your views, please click the link below to take part in a short survey. It usually takes 5-10 minutes, but can take up to 20 minutes for those who have more they want to tell us:

https://redcap.idhs.ucl.ac.uk/surveys/?s=MFKTRHH4FAAWCL8H

If you have any questions, feel free to get in touch with the research team:
Dr Sonali Dave
Email: [email protected]
Tel: +44 20 3987 2189

28/09/2026

⭐️ MONDAY BADGE STORY ⭐️

A big shout out this week to 8 year old Mollie-Mai for her award!

Mollie was nominated by her Physio, Roz. Roz told us how grown up Mollie-Mai had been recently when attending her rheumatology appointments. "She was able to speak up about what medicines she wanted to try and how they were to be administered and has been really brave in making that decision." Roz was so pleased to tell us that only 4 weeks later she is already noticing the difference and can already run and jump more comfortably. What fantastic news!

Roz had a special message for Mollie-Mai which was "Keep working hard at your exercises... and your knee movement and function will continue to go from strength to strength".

Maybe your child has been newly active recently or is working towards being able to do that. Perhaps they have recently learned a new active skill which deserves special recognition. Wield you like to nominate them for one of our Active Achievement awards like Mollie-Mai, or another one of the 8 awards available? If so you can nominate them here:

https://www.ccaa.org.uk/ccaa-award-badges/