Ambitious About Autism

Ambitious about Autism now run pioneering and award-winning education provisions across London and Brighton – three schools; two further education colleges; and one residential provision in addition to national programmes of employability support, youth participation, family support services; online information and forums.

The project is currently using the working title Together We Grow, which will unite them by using their seasonal produce, foliage, and fresh flowers to create handmade products such as baked goods, lip balms, soaps, chutneys, tea blends, and seasonal decorations.

Arts Depot

Tim Burley at Art Depot works hard to support those in Barnet on the edge of London but a multi racial population who hardly go into London. Arts Depot is a totally inclusive venue, and Tim provides a creative work experience preparation and ultimately full work experience opportunities for youngsters from local special needs schools.

The AT Society

This charity supports children who suffer with Ataxia Telangiectasias a rare and degenerative life shortening condition. This is the only charity in the UK providing bespoke support to these children and their families.

Autism Bedfordshire

Trustees are pleased to offer a further grant for the Saturday morning activity group for autistic children and their families. We enjoyed hearing about LOAF’s positive impact, offering autistic children a chance for fun and friendship.

Batten Disease Family Association

Batten Disease is a rare neurological disease resulting in a progressive loss of skills. BDFA sees its role in supporting children with this disease and guidance to their families. They also aim to increase awareness of this disease within the medical community.

Candlelighters

Candlelighters does inspiring work supporting children, young people and their families working through receiving a diagnosis of childhood cancer. They support families across Yorkshire with family wellbeing sessions, practical support, and adult and child therapies. They have asked the Trust for £1500 to contribute to their Children’s Talking Therapies programme that they offer to young people living with a diagnosis of cancer.

Chailey Heritage Foundation

Trustees are very pleased to continue their support for the hippotherapy/therapeutic riding provision that you provide for children living with complex disabilities. We appreciate that you support the families, and the children have fun away from the confines of their wheelchairs.

Challengers

Trustees are pleased to be able to make a grant towards the cost of your equipment for the year ahead. We cannot provide it all but hope that you are able to continue your excellent work in providing social opportunities to young disabled people in Guildford who are so often excluded from mainstream providers.

Chestnut Tree House

Trustees would like to continue to support your Liaison, Engagement, Activities and Families (LEAF) service, which you organise during the summer holidays for children with life-threatening conditions, and their families, so that they can have fun and make memories together.

Chickenshed Theatre

Chickenshed welcomes 650 Young Company members aged 5-21 each week, who take part in participatory Children’s and Youth Theatre activities and can perform in our theatre productions, taking part in inclusive theatre sessions where everyone creates, performs and belongs. We employ experienced mentors to remove any barriers to participation and enable those with additional needs to participate fully.

Children’s Heart Surgery Fund

Trustees enjoyed hearing about the ways in which you support the wellbeing of children recovering from heart surgery. We particularly appreciated learning about the use of the fishtank to motivate children to walk after surgery and we are pleased to offer a further grant towards this important work.

Children’s Hospice South West

Trustees recognise that current legislation requires all children’s hospices to conform to new build specifications for all their specialist medical beds. We wish our grant this year to be put towards that daunting £119K project.

Clear Vision

Trustees note that production of your braille inserts has had to move from the prison braille unit and we are wondering whether there would be mileage in making contact with Living Paintings who do similar work with the production of braille and raised image flongs for insertion into published books. We commend your service and hope that our reduced grant will help to bridge the funding gap.

Create

Trustees were pleased to hear about your art workshops bringing together schoolchildren from special educational needs disabilities (SEND) schools and mainstream schools, tackling prejudice and building understanding and key life skills.

Cystic Fibrosis Trust

Trustees have been impressed with the collaborative way in which the Trust approaches the provision of much needed support to young people with Cystic Fibrosis and their parents. The Building Brighter Futures programme is full of energy and excitement.

English Touring Opera

Trustees were fascinated to learn about your current production ‘Little Terror’ with interactive characters, an immersive set multisensory props and costumes and Makaton signing. We value the creativity and research that contributes to ETO productions, particularly those with an audience of children and with a wide range of learning difficulties.

ERIC (The Children’s Bowel & Bladder Charity)

Trustees very much appreciate the work you are doing with the Family Support Service, helping isolated families with a listening ear, encouragement, practical tips, clinically correct information, advice and educational resources to help manage these complex problems.

Family Action

The commitment of the mentors for children with autism spectrum disorder is impressive and the holistic support the children and their families receive.

Go Live Theatre Projects

Go Live Theatre Projects’ three Inclusive Family Days provide children with a visual or hearing impairment to engage with theatre and experience a live show. Each Family Day will allow young people and their families to make friends by having lunch together, play some introductory games as a group, before exploring the story, themes and characters of the show they are seeing.

Gympanzees

Trustees are happy to offer a grant towards your Lending Library service. We are pleased to know that families will be able to borrow (often expensive) specialist equipment to use at home which will help to improve the physical and mental well-being of children with disabilities.

Haringey Shed

Trustees are pleased to offer a grant to continue to help to provide transport for children with disabilities who have no other form of transport to a number of their activities. We always welcome the contribution we receive from Jim Shepley to our biennial conferences. When Trustees received the first application for this grant two years ago, we were delighted to receive the letter of support from Catherine West the MP for Hornsey and Friern Barnet (previously Hornsey and Wood Green).

Haven House Children’s Hospice

Haven House is a children’s hospice in Essex that is asking for funding to support the provision of physiotherapy services to children under their care, both in the hospice and at their homes. Their free assets will reduce in years to come as a results increase in investment in people, IT and extending the range of services on offer.

Heart ‘n’ Soul

Trustees enjoyed your application for ‘Do Your Own Thing’ which enables a group of teenagers in Deptford some with learning difficulties or complex needs and physical impairments to have a sociable time taking part in fun activities, art and music related on Saturday afternoons.

Hearts & Minds

Trustees thank Hearts and Minds for this grant application, to continue your innovative Clown doctors work. Trustees are pleased to read you have undertaken an independent review to better evaluate the impact of your work, which underlines the passion that you have for improving the lives of the young people and the families you serve during some really difficult times for them. Trustees are delighted to make an award to you and look forward to hearing more about your work in the future.

Independent Provider of Special Education Advice (IPSEA)

Trustees can appreciate the need to support parents in gaining the additional support required for children with SEND. Trustees would like to contribute towards the costs of producing a series of four webinars, which will provide free legal advice and guidance for parents/carers on the rights of their children with special educational needs/and or disabilities.

Keech Hospice Care

Keech are extremely grateful for the grant previously awarded in November 2024 to support the free, specialist services provided by the Emotional Support Practitioners at Keech Hospice. Sparklers is their support group for children 5-18 who have a family member in palliative care, or who have lost a loved one. It runs monthly and provides children with vital emotional support.  By discussing feelings in a group setting their feelings become normalised by the group making the children feel accepted.

Lake District Calvert Trust

Trustees are once again pleased to be able to support the work of the Calvert Trust Lakes by contributing to the Adventure Bursary Fund.  This enables children and young people who would otherwise not be able to take up a place. RDA (Riding for the Disabled) is now included in their activities.

Liquid Listening

Trustees are happy to see the effective use of the grant previously sent to Liquid Listening in helping the funding of the training of new practitioners in their unique Music Hydrotherapy techniques in various schools in the UK. Trustees are happy to make a grant this year to assist in the continued training of new practitioners in Watermill School, a specialist school in Stoke on Trent.

Little Angel Theatre

Trustees enjoyed reading about your year-long programme of bespoke puppet theatre performances for children receiving palliative and specialist care at Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice with a freelance specialist accompanying the puppeteer on each visit to lead a short follow-up activity rooted in storytelling or creative communication. Trustees believe this will bring cheer and comfort to the children and their families

Living Paintings Trust

Trustees are pleased to continue support for your unique, audio and tactile Touch to See books and resources that help blind and visually impaired children learn to read, support their childhood literacy journey and provide the tools to help them engage fully in classroom learning. These are loaned, free of charge, from your postal library to over 4,500 children, meaning no child misses out due to location or financial circumstances.

London Philharmonic Orchestra

The development of awareness of the Open Sound project is good news, as is widening of the pool of artistic personnel working on Open Sound, so that the participating young people with SEND in SE London have the experience of being led by different voices, and to ensure the sustainability of the project in case of illness or unavailability of our current workshop leaders making it much more sustainable.

London Symphony Orchestra

Trustees are pleased to be able to continue to support the work of the LSO in providing a Musical Inclusion Programme that speaks to needs of children in East London with Special Educational Needs /Disabilities.

Martin House Hospice

Trustees are pleased to contribute to the work of your family support practitioner, providing 90 sessions of art therapy to children and families.

Megan Baker House

Trustees are delighted to see that the use of our grant last year has helped deliver Conductive Education in schools alongside staff, mentoring and supporting teaching assistants to achieve their level 3 qualification and providing training materials and supervision to those teaching assistants.

Museum of London

Trustees are glad to hear of the growth of the museum’s access programmes, new sensory bags, and a dedicated area for access and SEND programming to our community newsletter, as well as tailored pre-visit emails and your responsiveness to feedback.

Trustees hope that a grant awarded will help further the impact of the Quieter Times offer and increase the number of children who will benefit.   

OKMT (Otakar Kraus Music Trust)

The Trust helps children and young people with additional needs or disabilities to play a musical instrument or sing and perform in public, They attend weekly 45-minute sessions with a qualified and experienced music therapist, who communicates with the child through Makaton signing, visual effects, simple language and music, using improvisation on keyboard and percussion to help the child to engage with her and take part in a musical activity. We now have 78 pupils at OK Music School and hold 4 public concerts every year (2 in summer and 2 at Christmas).

Peter Pan Centre

Trustees are pleased to support ‘Little Adventurers’, your valuable planned development in nursery provision for children with profound and multiple needs.

Polka Theatre

This is a marvellous theatre in Wimbledon that provides adapted performances and workshops that accommodate the needs for children with all forms of disability. Trustees wish to continue our support of Polka Theatre.

Rainbow Trust

Trustees are delighted to be able to continue to contribute to the costs of family support workers.  They provide emotional and practical support to families in Cumbria and Lancashire who are caring for a seriously ill child.

Seashell Trust

Trustees are pleased to support your request for funding to support your exciting community sports program for children with complex disabilities.

Soundabout

Soundabout provides a range of free online musical resources designed for learning disabled children and young adults with complex support needs and their families and carers.

Speech & Language UK

Trustees would like to give a grant to support the staff who work on the Speech and Language UK Advice Line. This is a free helpline which provides Family Support, a cornerstone of the charity’s activities and mission, equipping parents and carers with the knowledge, practical strategies and professional support that will help their children develop their talking and understanding of words, enabling them to flourish.

Strongbones Children’s Charitable Trust

This charity provides support to young wheelchair users in Essex to help them overcome social exclusion. They also provide respite care for families. The grant will be used to purchase winter warmer packs for the children, a number of whom, without them, risk having to be admitted to hospital due to hypothermia, pneumonia and other respiratory diseases.

Tall Ships Youth Trust

Trustees are pleased to be able to support TSYT in providing half of the requested award to enable 5 disabled youths to participate in Project Badger. Trustees cannot contribute to TSYT’s SOS fund it being a capital project

The Hamlet Centre

Trustees are pleased to support The Hamlet’s request for funding for your Specialist Early Years provision, providing support for families of children with disabilities and complex health needs. We appreciate that this also provides support for the wider family and appreciate the need for this in Norwich/Norfolk.

Theodora Children’s Charity

Trustees are delighted to continue to support the work of Theodora Children’s Charity by providing funding toward the cost of weekly visits to Sheffield Children’s Hospital by Giggle Doctors. Giggle Doctors visit children with serious illness, disability or life limiting conditions, bringing these children and their families joy and laughter at a time when they need it most.

Tiny Tim’s Children Centre

Trustees are pleased to make a grant to enable the Centre to offer therapy sessions to children with disabilities and special educational needs. Trustees recognise the importance of these sessions to improve children’s quality of life by reducing pain and building coping and self-esteem.

Together Trust

Trustees are pleased to be able to contribute toward the cost Eye Gaze enabled IPads to enable the Speech and Language Therapists to make assessments as to the suitability of Eye Gaze technology for severely disabled/non-verbal children.

The Wingate Centre

Trustees are pleased again to receive your application to help with for funding for 4 nights’ accommodation for 10 children to attend recreational activities for which they would not have any other opportunity.

Woodland Centre Trust

(Camp Mohawk, Wargrave, Berks)

Trustees are only able to provide a smaller grant this year in support of the wonderful work with severely Autistic children and their families. The experiences you can offer to such children are invaluable.

Yellow Submarine Holidays

Trustees are pleased to support Yellow Submarine with a grant towards its residential holidays for young people with learning disabilities and autism. These holidays offer a fun and safe experience encouraging independence and supporting personal growth and development.