sporting - Leisure Opportunities

PLAY
sense of achievement
When a mother decided to address the need for a sensory play centre for
disabled children in Liverpool, she didn’t let her lack of business experience
stop her. Magali Robathan finds out how Jake’s Sensory World took shape
W
hen Jake’s Sensory World
opened in Netherton,
Liverpool, at the end of
February 2012, it marked the culmination
of several years fundraising, and
a lucky collision of Sefton Council’s
aims and one mother’s desire to open
a centre for her 11-year-old son and
other disabled children to use.
The centre, which cost £480,000 to
create, has a sensory room featuring
bubble tubes, UV lighting, a water bed,
fibre optics and projectors and a large
ball pool. It also has a soft play room
with interactive tunnels, interactive tactile
walls, hopscotch floor panels and
musical steps.
All areas of the play facility are
accessible via a ceiling track hoist,
and it has two disabled toilets/changing
rooms with hydraulic changing
beds and ceiling hoists.
Jake's Sensory World is part of the
new Netherton Activity Centre (NAC),
which opened in January 2012. NAC
features a range of leisure facilities
under one roof, including a sports hall,
a library, grass and synthetic pitches, a
dance studio, health referral suites, an
IT suite and a crèche.
BIRTH OF AN IDEA
The idea for Jake’s Sensory World
was born five years ago. Mothers Jo
Hall and Ruth Garrett met when their
respective children, Jake and Kady,
were babies. It gradually became
apparent that Jake was developing
at a different pace, and when he was
a year old, it was confirmed that he
had a rare neurotransmitter disease.
This left him with complex needs, and
meant that it was very difficult to find
leisure activities to suit the whole family
– he has an older sister, Lois.
“The idea for Jake’s Sensory World
Jake with Jo Hall and Ruth Garrett (left); Children enjoying the fibre optic curtains (right)
came about because there is hardly
any provision for play in the area suitable
for disabled children,” says Jo Hall.
The family often travelled to a sensory
play centre in Preston, called Space,
but it meant a long journey and only
part of the facility was accessible by
a ceiling track hoist, making the rest
out of bounds for Jake and other children
like him. “We wished there was
somewhere in the area that was fully
accessible for Jake, that his family and
friends could enjoy too,” says Hall.
Hall and Garrett formed a steering
group to look into setting up a sensory
play centre in the Sefton Park
area of Liverpool. The pair applied for
funding from various bodies, and got
start up funding of £5,000 from both
the Merseyside Disability Federation
and voluntary sector infrastructure
organisation Merseyside Expanding
Horizons. They then carried out extensive
market research, which identified
a real need for a new play facility for
disabled children in the area.
The charity, Jake’s Sensory World,
was set up four years ago, and applied
for the necessary £500,000 in funding
from Children in Need, Big Lottery, the
Baily Thomas Foundation and the Cloth
Workers' Foundation. Although they
got through to the last round in several
of their applications, and the Baily
Thomas Foundation pledged £30,000,
Hall and Garrett didn’t manage to
secure the funding they needed.
At this point, Hall admits that she
began to doubt whether the facility
would ever open. Hall and Garrett had
a “last ditch attempt, writing to every
MP and councillor that had anything to
do with Sefton." In early 2009, Peter
Dowd, deputy leader of Sefton Council
and cabinet minister for Children’s
Services, said he was interested in
the idea and wanted to meet them.
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Read Leisure Management online leisuremanagement.co.uk/digital ISSUE 2 2012 © cybertrek 2012