North-East childrens's hospice Zoe's Place launches its Sponsor a Cot appeal today. Women's Editor Sarah Foster meets a former client who's now its key fundraiser and learns of the role it plays.

IT was a crucial moment for Liz Jacobs and her husband Robin. They'd taken Erin, their little girl, to meet the staff at Zoe's Place and weren't too sure of what she'd make of them.

As Liz recalls, they needn't have worried. "She had a little beige bear that we called Beigy and her way of showing that she trusted and liked someone was to get hold of Beigy's arm and pass him to the person," she says. "They would have to pretend to give him a cuddle and then pass him back to Erin, and she would then cuddle Beigy. We came in and the nurses talked to her and played with her and she just handed out Beigy and wanted kisses from everyone. We were just amazed because she was a little girl who didn't trust very easily because so much had been done to her."

That fateful day, in January 2004, was to change the Jacobs' lives. Up to then, Liz and Robin had cared for Erin on their own and now their workload would be shared. As Liz explains, because of a heart condition, her daughter couldn't just be left. "She had pulmonary atresia, which meant that the right hand side of her heart didn't work," she says. "My mum couldn't look after my little girl because at times she was oxygen dependent. She was at risk of choking and she used to regularly pull out her naso-gastric tube. A child with this type of special needs isn't a child you can just leave with anybody. Parents are taught how to care for them but to expect grandparents to take on that responsibility is very hard."

When Liz and Robin first took Erin, then aged one, for respite care, it was early days for Zoe's Place. The former convent, in pleasant grounds in a Middlesbrough suburb, had only opened that same month. It proved a blessing to the Hartlepool couple, providing precious months of help, until in June 2004, Erin passed away. "She had a routine procedure and she didn't recover properly from the anaesthetic - her heart just gave up," says 40-year-old Liz. "It was such a shock - we were stunned. It was just the most horrific experience we've gone through. I just kept saying 'how can I go home without my little girl?'"

The next few months were very hard but, helped by the hospice, Liz and Robin worked through their grief. Then last October, Liz lost her job in senior management. A short time later a post came up at Zoe's Place and, knowing how much good it did, she promptly applied. She passed the interview and since this April has been charge of its appeals. "Erin changed me as a person and changed what I wanted to do in life. I wasn't the same person," she says. "I'm using all the skills I had but for a better cause."

I've come to the hospice, at Liz's request, to find out more about its work. Of course her job is finding sponsors and pretty soon we're talking cash. "We're about to launch the Sponsor a Cot appeal," she tells me. "The main reason is that when I came in nearly five months ago, I knew that the Big Lottery funding was ending and we were going to be totally on our own to pay for the care of the children. It's around about £250 per child per day, purely for the care."

As Liz explains, unlike adult hospices, those for children are not entitled to State help. "An adult hospice receives between 30 and 50 per cent of its funding from the Government. A children's hospice doesn't," she says. "The main reason is when someone goes into an adult hospice they're freeing up an NHS bed, and most people go into adult hospices because it's coming to the end of their life. Although they do provide respite, most of their care is terminal care. A children's hospice is the reverse of that."

To give me a feel of Zoe's Place, Liz takes me on a tour. It's not that often that outside guests can meet the children face to face but I am lucky: I've got through the requisite red tape. We pass through double doors to find an empty schoolroom. "The computer has larger keys with lots of colours because the children relate better to colours and they need the bigger keys," Liz points out. "They also do lots of painting and things like that."

The room next door is the central playroom, where tabard-wearing staff are having fun with three pre-schoolers. Dark-haired Macauley, who's nearly four, becomes a star before the camera, his face all smiles for our photographer. He can't stop hugging placid Owen, who's less enamoured by the attention. From what I see they're happy children - it's pretty clear they're bathed in love. Liz knows as well as any just what this means to careworn parents.

"If we didn't come in and care for the children and give the parents a break, the parents would end up in a hospital bed," she says bluntly. "Even with a 100 per cent healthy child you expect sleep deprivation. If you have a child with special needs you basically have sleep deprivation for the rest of your life. They come here and it's a safe pair of hands because the nursing staff take the time to get to know the child and what's best for them."

As parents do at least get respite when their child starts school, the hospice caters for those who haven't yet reached five. It takes a maximum of four at any one time and as well as day care, it offers places overnight. Its children suffer from varied problems. "I once looked at a list of the conditions we would take and I think there's something like 80 or 90," says Liz.

We leave the playroom for the second floor, where Zoe's Place parents come to stay. As Liz informs me, it's seen a lot of changes since the nuns moved out. "The Sisters of Mercy lived here and because they lived in such tiny cells we had to knock out the walls to make bigger rooms," she says. "We try to keep them nice and homely and comfortable."

As we progress from room to room, with thoughtful touches like comfy chairs and shelves of books, I learn how Zoe's Place was born. "Four or five years ago the nuns contacted our trustee, Professor Jack Scarisbrick, because they knew he was looking for a second location for a hospice (there's also one in Liverpool), and asked if he would like to look at this building, which he did and said yes very quickly," says Liz. "Zoe in Greek means gift of life and the reason that name was chosen was because our philosophy of care is that it's not about the quantity, but the quality of life."

By now we've reached our very last stop, called Zoe's Room. It's where those children for whom there is no further help are brought to die. The whole idea is that their parents stay here too, so they can share their final days and start to mourn them when they're gone. Stepping into this hallowed place, its walls a warm and sunny yellow, I feel a prickling down my spine. Although I don't know how she does it, Liz keeps her cool. "Every day I come here it reminds me of Erin," she tells me later. "I'll never get over losing her - ever. I can't escape it so I might as well accept it and do something positive. There's something about every single one of the children who come here... you can't help but care so much about them."

* To make a donation to the Sponsor a Cot appeal, contact Liz on (01642) 457985 or visit www.zoes-place.org.uk