Southport woman to support new Brainwave Centre Families

National charity Brainwave, which provides home based therapy programmes for children with cerebral palsy and other conditions such as development delay, recently appointed Sally Preston as their North West Regional Family Coordinator and is now announcing the opening of its third Centre in Birchwood, Warrington. Sally, who lives in Southport, became involved with the Charity eighteen years ago when she took her daughter, Natalie, to the original Brainwave Centre in the South West. Such was her delight in what Brainwave’s therapists managed to do to help her daughter, she decided to work for the Charity! Her role is to help families on Brainwave’s programmes who live in the North West and who will now be attending the new Centre. Sally provides them with much needed information and emotional support. Sally is a qualified nursery nurse and has always worked with young children including those in Special Needs in main stream primary school. Christine Cryne, Brainwave’s Chief Executive Officer, said “Our enquiries are growing at over 30% year on year so the Trustees decided that we needed to expand. The families on our Programme have said how difficult it can be travelling long distances with children with disabilities so rather than expanding at our current Centres in Essex and Somerset, we chose to set up a new Centre on Warrington to reduce the travelling for families from the northern part of Britain”. The setting up of the new Centre has been funded by the October Club, a City of London charitable group. The estimates are that there are some 130,000 families in the North West with children under 12 with disabilities and/or development delay. Currently, Brainwave is seeing 460 families each year, a very small proportion of those it could help. Brainwave works with families to deliver individual home based therapy and exercise programmes that help children with disabilities and developmental delay to achieve their potential. Places on the programme are available for children at the North West Centre. For more information see www.brainwave.org.uk ; email: enquiriesnw@brainwave.org.uk or phone: 01925 825547. Contact: Christine Cryne: 07970 096366 or Sally Preston: 07725 956011 Further press information: Jane Adkins, Tel: 01935 813114 or email: jane@aheadforpr.co.uk Editor’s notes 1. Brainwave’s team of physiotherapists, occupational therapists development therapists and teachers seek to transform the lives of children with disabilities. 2. By working with parents, giving them relevant therapy equipment and showing them correct handling skills, they are empowered to actively participate in their child’s development. 3. Around 27,000 children are born or will develop some level of disability each year. This includes 1800 children with Cerebral Palsy and 900 babies with Downs Syndrome. The charity is dependent upon donations to carry out its work; it costs only £3,500 to unlock a child’s potential. If you think you can contribute towards giving hope to families visit www.brainwave.org.uk to see how you can help. 4. See the charity’s video at http://uk.youtube.com/BrainwaveCentre. 5. The Centre is easily accessible from the M6 and is a short walk from Birchwood Station.