Dame Vera Lynn Children's Charity

The Dame Vera Lynn Children's Charity supports under 5s' with cerebral palsy and other motor learning difficulties. In January 2017 we moved premises to set-up our new Dame Vera Lynn Children's Centre in Cuckfield, West Sussex to enable many more children and families to benefit in the future. We offer families with children who have cerebral palsy and other motor learning difficulties an early intervention service based upon the principles of Conductive Education. We will also be offering additional services to reflect our families' needs now. These will initially include holiday and Saturday clubs, a parent support network, equipment and toy libraries and will give families access to the most recent assistive interactive technology. An outreach service will help families in their own homes. Some services will be chargeable, and all will be shaped by working in partnership with our families. Conductive Education is an educational programme which helps the child to develop more typical posture, muscle tone and movement patterns and will form the bedrock of the independence that they can achieve in later life. Children come to our service at different ages and stages of learning so every child is assessed on admittance to the service and individual objectives and goals are agreed with the parents. Our structured sessions focus on achieving success and provide the security of routine whilst incorporating the Early Years Foundation Stage. The sessions are age and ability appropriate and address all aspects of the childs development using songs, art, drama and movement as children learn with and through their parents in small groups. We receive no statutory funding. All the services we offer are provided free of charge. We rely entirely on the support of the community to raise the funds required to ensure that this vital and service can continue.