Sensational Kids looking to expand its premises with upcoming events including the Enchanted Fairy & Elf Festival in May

By Kim O'Leary

A Co Kildare charity is hoping to bring its services to children across the country, with plans to expand their premises in Kildare as well as developing centres in the West of the country.

The charity Sensational Kids was set up in 2008 by Kildare woman Karen Leigh, who was inspired by her own family’s experiences with long waiting lists and a lack of affordable and accessible occupational therapy services for her own children, Karen founded the social enterprise to bridge the gap between public and private services.

Sensational Kids employs 21 staff, including a highly skilled clinical team across sites in Kildare Town and Clonakilty in Cork. Sensational Kids offers subsidised speech and language therapy and occupational therapy to children with special educational needs.

The charity is planning to open a third centre in Connacht in 2018, supported by the experienced voluntary board of directors, Sensational Kids is set to become Ireland’s leading provider of affordable and accessible early intervention services for children in Ireland.

Speaking to KildareNow, Development Manager Rhoda Bermingham explained: “Sensational Kids aims to support children and families with special educational needs; we basically aim to bridge the gap between private and public services. We subsidise the costs for therapy costs for children, with the HSE children who may or may not have already been diagnosed can be on a waiting list to see an occupational therapist or a specialist for a year and a half, with a cost of €120. We try to get the children seen to within three weeks and at a lower price of €70, which is considerably cheaper for the families. The waiting lists with the HSE are just terrible and we hope to help families to get a more efficient service.”

According to Ms Bermingham, Sensational Kids helps children with a variety of special needs and the charity helped 700+ children last year with over 4,600 children assisted by the charity over the years. She said: “A lot of the children would have autism, although they may not be necessarily diagnosed. Normally teachers tell their parents to bring them to the GP, and then they would usually be referred to us from the GP. We aim to help them as early as possible because the more help they receive the more they can improve; these children can be quite traumatised when they come in, but they are beautiful and healthy children, they just have some additional needs.”

Sensational Kids currently has its headquarters in Kildare Town, but Ms Bermingham explained that the charity is seeking to further expand their premises due to tight office spaces. “We’re bursting to capacity, we really need to reach 10,000sq.ft and to do that we need funding as we are currently renting the premises. We don’t get any support from the government.”

Ms Bermingham has also praised the support of local Kildare schools who she said have been “very supportive”, and Sensational Kids also provides several workshops and training courses for teachers and Special Needs Assistants with approximately six such training courses taking place each year. However, Ms Bermingham noted that there is “a stigma associated with special needs.” She said: “We are trying to break this stigma associated with special needs and autism through our services, we want to get the children the help they need as early as possible.”

The charity is also set to experience a busy few months as it prepares to celebrate 10 years helping children and their families, with upcoming projects including the introduction of hippotherapy.

Speaking of the new therapy treatment, Ms Bermingham explained: “Hippotherapy involves the interaction between children and horses as studies have shown that autistic children in particular can form strong bonds with animals. We hope to roll it out here in Co Kildare shortly and we feel we’re well placed to look to the equine industry for support. It involves the children doing therapeutic activities while riding on the ponies with an occupational therapist and a guide leading them. We’re very hopeful that it will prove to be a positive and effective treatment.”

(l-r) Rhoda Bermingham, Development Manager - Sensational Kids, Karen Leigh - CEO Sensational Kids, Helen Mulhall - Project Officer Rural Development Programme at Co Kildare Leader Partnership & Brian Kelly - RDP Manager, Co Kildare Leader Partnership[/caption]

The charity’s Occupational Therapist Laura Kelly completed specialist training in the USA and will be bringing her skills to the project which will operate from JAG Equestrian in Rathmore. Meanwhile, County Kildare LEADER Partnership have awarded funding of €7,863.30 to Sensational Kids to support the new Hippotherapy project.

Funding under the Rural Development Programme (LEADER) will go towards special equipment to kickstart the project.

Another upcoming event for Sensational Kids is The Enchanted Fairy & Elf Festival which is set to take over two days on May 19th and 20th in Rathwood, a leisure, shopping and entertainment centre just outside Tullow in County Carlow.

Children are being invited to wear fancy dress costumes for The Enchanted Fairy & Elf Festival which combines the magic of Sensational Kids and the quality of Rathwood’s facilities and talented staff, with activities to include decorating a wooden Fairy House which can be taken home followed by a Train Ride through the Enchanted Forest, carnival games, face painting, and lots more.

Dedicated times for children with special needs are available at 10.30am each day with reduced numbers and quieter music in the festival area. A limited number of Wheelchair accessible tickets are available during all time slots.

There is huge demand for tickets to this special event, and online pre-booking is essential. Tickets for this popular event are available to purchase online now by visiting www.sensationalkids.ie