Sensory Kids, a charity based in Northern Ireland, support children with disabilities and their families. A donation from the Wesleyan Foundation funded their Lego therapy and mindfulness sessions with a £5,060 to meet the needs of 60 young people with autism.
There is a prominent need for tailored face to face workshops for young children with autism. Sensory Kids have been delivering innovative Lego Therapy and Six Bricks sessions. Mary Connor, Founder of Sensory Kids, explained:
“Lego Therapy is all about a child being able to build and create something. In the group with the three year olds they’re all at same level and they have a builder, they have an architect and they make things by working as a team. It’s really inspiring to watch it. Six Bricks is using Lego bricks of different colours, each colour represents an emotion, so it’s a way for them to communicate through the bricks and it’s fun, it’s not just about a therapy.
“We work from babies upwards, working with parents whose children have autism, to give them that little bit of respite. We’ve found that more parents since the pandemic haven’t got a job at the moment and their money is used for food and clothing for their children and there’s no spare money for therapy for their autistic child, they know the therapy is beneficial but they just can’t afford it so this is why we want our service to be free.
“Schools and teachers are desperate for these kind of therapies, parents especially, and this is what we needed the money for so we could pay the therapists and not have to charge the parents. The funding from Wesleyan is a dream come true!”
