Accessing our service

Our Early Intervention Service 'Better Start, Better Future'.

As a parent or carer, you can contact us directly to refer your child to our early intervention service, 'Better Start, Better Future'. This service is for babies, with a high risk of and /or evolving cerebral palsy, from birth up until the age of 2, however, to access this service a referral needs to be made.

To start, we will ask about your child’s birth history and the concerns that you may have. If appropriate we will arrange for you and your child to have an Initial Consultation appointment with our Family Support Coordinator and a senior therapist. From that appointment, your child may then be offered regular therapy appointments until the age of 2. A further therapy appointment will be offered when your child is 3. Our early intervention service, Better Start, Better Future is funded through charitable donations.

NHS Community Therapy Team

Your child may be referred to our service by your local NHS Community Therapy Team. Around 20% of our funding comes from service level agreements with the seven Local Health Boards (LHB’s) in Wales and a certain number of children are referred to us each year from the LHBs. These children are usually 3 ½ and older but the NHS teams also refer babies to our early intervention service, Better Start, Better Future. Some of the services we provide for the LHB’s occur at our children's centre and others in the local community, always working closely with the NHS Community Therapy Teams, aiming to provide a seamless provision between us.

Funded projects

Occasionally we receive grant funding for specific projects, which means we can offer therapy to some of the older children. When we have opportunities like this, selecting the children to attend is prioritised on their clinical need, how long since we have seen them and the specialist nature of the project. Examples of these projects have been the Jungle Explorers programme for children with unilateral cerebral palsy and our ESCAPADES! programme for children with complex cerebral palsy (GMFCS levels IV and V). Positive feedback and results from the outcome measures of these programmes means we are aiming to secure more funding for programmes like this in the future.

Private Therapy Service

Where appropriate, we now offer the opportunity for families to book private / self-funded therapy sessions for their child. These sessions are typically for children over the age of 2 who have been given a diagnosis of cerebral palsy.

All self-funded therapy sessions will be conducted by one of our highly specialist therapists who all have extensive experience working with children who have cerebral palsy.

We are delighted to be able to offer therapy sessions at our Children’s Centre in Cardiff, or alternatively, we can deliver these sessions virtually so that you and your child can attend from the comfort of your own home.

To find out more about our private therapy service, please click here.