As the summer holidays end and work progresses on building a school for special educational needs children, Rainbow Hub still needs to continue to offer conductive education to the children with physical and neurological disabilities who rely on their services to help them develop their skills.
The work on the school at Mawdesley is too noisy and disruptive for the children to continue with their sessions on site so Rainbow Hub had to find another suitable location that was still easy for parents to access.
Inspire Youth Zone, Chorley proved to be ideal and agreed to host the conductive sessions from early September 2023 to June 2024.
The venue, which is bright and vibrant with the same ethos as Rainbow Hub, has rooms large enough to accommodate the hoists, wheelchairs and other equipment required to run the sessions, together with changing place facilities to meet the needs of the children Rainbow Hub supports and a platform lift. They are also providing office and storage space.
The location in the centre of Chorley with car parks nearby is well placed for Rainbow Hub’s families who bring their children for conductive education from across Lancashire.
Lyndsay Fahey, CEO, Rainbow Hub, said, “we were delighted when Inspire Youth Zone agreed to let us use their premises for our conductive education sessions. The location and premises are ideal and a great fit. Our sessions take place in the morning and early afternoon, whilst their work is out of school hours so they are not disrupted in any way. And the aim of both of our organisations is to help children and young people to fulfil their individual potential. “
She continued, “we also hope that our use of Inspire Youth Zone will also raise their profile in the community of disabled children who may not be aware of all they offer.”
Janine Blythe, CEO, Inspire Youth Zone, added: “Inclusion is at the heart of everything that we do at Inspire, from accessibility of the building through to each and every activity we run. Our core operation predominantly takes place when schools are shut, so when we received the request from Rainbow Hub to use our space throughout the school day, it seemed like the perfect alignment – allowing our facilities to be used to their full capacity.
The work the team from Rainbow Hub do is truly life changing and it fits completely with everything that we as an organisation are about. We’re really looking forward to this next year sharing not just a space, but also experience and expertise, because we know that we never stop learning and we never stop working to be best equipped to support young people of all abilities.”