Noah's Ark Appeal

The Noah's Ark Appeal is the fundraising campaign,to build, equip and support the only children's hospital for Wales. The capital funding for Phase Two comes from the Welsh Assembly Government but the Noah’s Ark Appeal is needed to provide some major pieces of equipment such as an open MRI scanner, the art program as well as other state-of-the-art specialist equipment and facilities, four play areas and 2 sensory rooms.

Wooden Spoons Involvement - Wooden Spoon has a long association with Noah’s Ark Appeal at the Children's Hospital in Wales and the charity has committed to delivering a minimum funding of £250,000 towards play and sensory room provision (as described below) for the new Phase 2 building.

Four Play Rooms and Two Sensory Play Rooms - On the Land Floor and the Sky Floor there will be two Play Rooms and a Sensory Play Room. Estimated annual usage is forecast as c9,000 in-patients for the four Play Rooms and c2,500 in-patients for the two Sensory Rooms. The Play Rooms will also be available for an indeterminate number of in-patients’ siblings and other child visitor.  Play is essential to the growth and development of children of all ages, abilities and backgrounds whilst they are in hospital.  Play is a generic term applied to a wide range of activities and behaviours that are satisfying to the child and freely chosen by the child whilst in hospital. Play enables a child to develop positive attitudes to differences of ethnicity, religion, culture, language, gender and ability. When children or teenagers are admitted to hospital they are at their most vulnerable; not only are they ill but they are separated from friends, family and familiar surroundings and play can really make a difference to their progress and rate of recovery. The hospital employs a dedicated and qualified Play Team who offer supervised hospital play (enabling a child to act out situations and feelings that they may have difficulty in expressing verbally), distraction therapy (helping a child to reduce anxiety and pain), therapeutic play (enabling a child to work through fears and phobias), and normalised play (getting the child to have fun whilst bridging the gap between home/school/hospital). Sensory Play Therapy is specifically for children with multi-sensory impairment, often including combined hearing and vision impairments which will affect how they develop and learn. Given these difficulties, it is important that these children do not miss out on essential therapy whilst they are in hospital. The play specialist can help and support the continuation of the development of their play and sensory skills within the ‘sensory environment’ that a suitably equipped Sensory Play Room can provide. As well as being pleasurable for the child, this experience can help them to become more aware of different sights, sounds and textures and to develop their understanding of cause and effect whilst in an unfamiliar environment. Furthermore, Sensory Play Therapy is a tool which can be used to empower vulnerable children in an unfamiliar situation by development of language and communications.  Six rooms across two floors affords excellent opportunities for high-profile recognition for a  corporate organisation or individual benefactor. Wooden Spoon is challenged to raise the £250,000 to support this project by 31 March 2014

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