Norwood ‘s Distressed Investing dinner raise record-breaking £625,000

More than four hundred guests attended the annual Norwood Distressed Investing Dinner at The Chancery Rosewood in London on Thursday evening, raising £625k for the charity supporting adults, children and their families with neurodiversity and neurodevelopmental disabilities.

Members of the distressed investing community (the purchase of debt or equity securities in financially troubled companies at a discount) networked with Europe’s leading contacts in the sector.

Dinner committee member and Norwood honorary vice president Neville Kahn introduced the evening’s fundraising appeal, which he said reflected the charity’s crucial work in “helping families waiting too long for diagnoses, adults who are told they do not qualify for state-funded care, and parents trying to hold everything together without the support they desperately need”.

Addressing guests, Abbi and Neil, Norwood parents of Zack, Ari and Max, all of whom are neurodivergent and attend mainstream school, spoke of their journey supporting their family.

Neil said that when middle son Ari was first diagnosed, his behaviours were “so challenging that they consumed a huge amount of our focus as parents and affected home life considerably”.

His wife Abbi added that although medication helped to keep things more manageable, before her mother signposted seeking Norwood’s support, they struggled to find a way forward.

Having first approached Norwood, where they were referred for parenting support, she said: “For the first time, it felt as though someone understood what family life was really like for us and could see a way forward…. they gave us practical tools we could actually use.”

Sharing that “family time used to be a real strain”, she added that “we’ve come a long way since then. What we’ve learned has been shown to work, and the techniques are transferable between the kids. Norwood has helped us give them the skills and resilience to cope with life.”