Brent Knoll & Watergate Co-operative Trust is a grassroots, family-focused charity in the borough of Lewisham, supporting children and young people with SEND and their families and carers. Brent Knoll is a Cooperative Trust special school for children aged 4 -16 with complex social, communication and interaction difficulties including autism. Watergate is Lewisham’s primary special school for 3-11 year-olds who have severe learning difficulties. A significant number of our pupils have a diagnosis of autism. 27 are wheelchair users and many have profound and multiple learning difficulties; some additional physical and sensory disabilities. £230m has been taken away from Lewisham Council's budget and there is no money for holiday clubs for our children who cannot access mainstream provision, so our charity exists initially to resource this. Eventually we would like to grow our charity into a social enterprise to provide housing and employment possibilities for our alumni.
Disability
At an age where most teenagers are able to socialise independently outside school, our young people, with their social and communication obstacles to overcome, can feel very isolated, anxious and marginalised in the school holidays. It is frequently the case that parents feel too anxious to be able to take their children out of the home environment, anticipating that conflict could arise, sadly often from hostile and critical members of the public. Lewisham is within the fifth most deprived boroughs in the country and amongst our parents are refugees who have fled war zones. Our website www.bkw.co-op is currently in development. We would welcome assistance in marketing collateral for our charity, sourcing motivated trustees and patrons and with the "official" opening of Brent Knoll School, to raise awareness of the Trust in a fun way.
0 Help Wanted Ads