What we do

Specialist therapy

Our specialist team of physiotherapists, occupational therapists and speech and language therapists work in a transdisciplinary way, so that each child benefits from their combined knowledge and skills. This means they consider the whole child and recognise the bio-psycho-social model of disability (International Classification of Functioning Disability and Health) throughout therapy. Our therapy team are experts in their field, specialising for many years in children living with cerebral palsy. We provide our specialist therapy to children who have cerebral palsy and/or other allied neurological conditions from birth up to the age of 18.

Our therapy may consist of a single session or may be intensive which means that your child will attend several sessions a week over a number of weeks.

Communication and collaboration is our priority and we make sure that the extended family and those who care for your child are involved in therapy sessions so that everyone knows how best to help your child whether at home or at school. Read more about our approach to treatment.

‘Many aspects of the therapy involve us taking a “hands on” approach. We are able to receive training to support our daughter in her therapy programme which has been individually tailored for her so that she can maximise her potential and development. We have no experience of any other such programme which benefits our family in this way.’ Sarah, Isla’s mum

Our Family Support Service

We want to make sure that as a family you feel supported and empowered to help your child in the best way possible. Our Family Support Service is led by Glenys Evans, herself a parent of Tom, now an adult, who has cerebral palsy. Glenys is one of the founder parents of the charity and has been involved since 1989. When you first come to the centre, you and your child will get to know Glenys, who is always there to offer support whenever needed. Through her own personal experience and through listening to many families, Glenys really understands the emotional journey of parents, and the day to day stresses. Her experience and training means she is there to listen to you and talk through issues whether emotional, practical or financial, she is always happy to help.

Sharing knowledge

We believe that sharing of knowledge and skills is essential for the benefit of the children. As we are experts in cerebral palsy we can share our multidisciplinary knowledge with families, but we also ask families to share their knowledge of their child with us – as they are the experts, so that we can learn and understand their child in different contexts. Sharing knowledge and skills between us and the NHS Local Community Therapy Team also includes offering courses on cerebral palsy and supporting the Wales Cerebral Palsy Clinical Leads group.

Ensuring continuing professional development is key to well trained, critically thinking, problem-solving therapists. We believe that therapists with the right values, who are up to date with the latest knowledge and thinking around cerebral palsy worldwide, will deliver the best therapy.

Do we make a difference?

It is very important to know if our service is making a difference. This means a difference for each and everyone of the children and families attending the centre. One of the ways we do this is by measuring each therapy intervention with questionnaires. We also use Goal Attainment Scaling for all interventions of more than a single session. Some standard outcome measures are also used when they are applicable to specific groups of children who have cerebral palsy. We then audit these individual results collectively and look at how we are performing for children of different ages or who have different types of cerebral palsy. These results drive improvements in our services. We often present the results of our audits at international conferences where we share best practice with clinicians from around the world.