Prince’s Trust Makeover For Sensory World
Sensory World Play Centre celebrated it’s recent conversion to a Community Interest Company (CIC) with a dramatic makeover.
Led by Charlotte Smith, a Youth Intereventions Trainer with the West Yorkshire Fire Service based in Dewsbury, a team of 16-25 year olds recently gave Sensory World a whole new look.
Their support for Sensory World was sparked by a visit to the Play Centre and a conversation with owner, Linda Holmes, after which the group quickly realised how Sensory World's work with the community fitted into into the 2 week community project part of their 12 week Prince’s Trust course.
In order to ensure that their work suited the needs of Sensory World users covering autism, aspergers and special needs the group arranged to take an Autism Awareness course. This led them to understand that even something as simple as the colours used for decoration can affect mood and behaviour - which led to the selection of some very special colours.
They also created a new 'den' for children on the autism spectrum as well as a number of 'busy boards' where various hardware is fixed to a wall mounted board to enable sensory deprived children to become accustomed to everyday objects.
Example of a busy board
The money needed was raised by two fund raising efforts; a bake sale in Dewsbury Library and a sponsored ‘Firefighter Fitness Challenge’ when the group undertook some of the fitness exercises that are part of firefighter training.
All together the group raised £206 and were also supported by gifts from Dewsbury branches of Asda, B&Q and Wickes.
Watch the video they produced to see the end result:
