Grove Cottage is a great local charity that has been providing social and some educational activities for people with learning difficulties for more than 40 years.

Although we charge for all our services, we still need to raise £30,000 each year to support the activities.  

Young children with learning disability need one-to-one care by people who understand learning difficulties.   This makes a special needs nursery much more expensive than a normal pre-school nursery.   We provide the specialist care and try to sheild the young families from the extra cost associated with the disability.    Similarly, we provide specialist speech and language therapy to supplement the service provided by the NHS; this is an expense that is not faced by most parents.

Our work helps the individual develop, it provides respite for the family and it allows parents to spend quality time with the other children.    Members can progress through a series of clubs so that they maintain lifelong friendship groups even though they may go to different schools or live some distance apart.

Grove Cottage provides social, and some educational, activities for people with learning disability to support lifelong friendships and provide respite for the families. Each week about 50 local families benefit from the respite and almost 100 people use our facilities. It is a local charity that has been providing its services for more than 40 years.

Children can join the Special Needs Nursery in the first year of life. The nursery provides one-to-one care for the children, is monitored by OFSTED and follows the Early Years approach. When the children reach five years they will start school but they can continue to attend clubs at Grove Cottage on Saturdays to maintain their friendship groups and allow their family some respite.

We provide Speech Therapy to supplement the service provided by the NHS.   By helping our members communicate better we can help them improve their life.   Most of the children use the Makaton sign language to help them communicate.   Once or twice a year we hold a training day to teach the Dads (and others) how to use the sign language.

When our members leave school they are able to join our evening clubs; our oldest members are in their seventies and have been attending for 40 years.

Our next project is to open a Friday evening youth club for teenagers.