The Children’s Trust: Dedicated to helping disabled children to regain lost abilities

9:24am Friday 14th September 2007

The Children's Trust has already earned a countrywide reputation for its pioneering work, but it is now set to become the national rehabilitation centre for children with brain injuries and multiple disabilities.

It is shortly to start work on a £7million state-of-the-art building which will increase the trust's capacity to help profoundly handicapped children and enhance its reputation for achieving results that some people never thought possible.

The trust, based at Tadworth Court with its historic mansion house, could be a deeply depressing place where severely handicapped children are warehoused.

Instead it is a place of fun, of laughter and of hope - a place where the dedicated skills of the staff help children to regain lost skills or develop new ones.

James is an example of what can be achieved at the trust.

Six years ago, James - then 15 - lived life to the full. An air cadet in his spare time, he dreamed of becoming an RAF pilot and hoped to go to university.

In August 2000, returning with his friends from an air training camp, the coach in which they were travelling was hit at high speed by a 32-ton lorry. The four children in the back seats took the full impact. Three were killed. The fourth was James. He suffered severe injuries and brain damage.

Three months after the accident, James was sent to the Children's Trust. He was unable to do anything for himself; he was very confused and frustrated. During eight months of intensive rehabilitation, he had to re-learn how to walk and talk and he had to make sense of the world around him.

James will not now be the pilot he hoped to be, but with help from the trust he has found another passion - horticulture - and is studying for a national diploma. This summer he completed a sponsored walk along The Great Wall of China.

Andrew Ross, chief executive of the Children's Trust said: "Securing funds for this project will be the trust's greatest fundraising challenge yet, but we are confident that our individual and corporate supporters will recognise the real need for this development and pledge their support."

The trust is convinced that the money will come in and that the first children will move into the new centre in the summer of 2009.

It is to be carefully sited away from the mansion which is to be preserved with its gardens so the modern work will not impinge on the historic house when the building is complete.

The new centre will have a hydrotherapy pool and a family flat to allow parents to stay on the site when their child first arrives at the site and later when they are preparing to take their child home.

On the ground floor will be 12 beds in 10 large bedrooms - each with its own terrace. On the first floor there will be eight single bedrooms.

There will be a large living and dining room, a quiet room, a teenagers den and a coffee shop for children, families and staff.

The high-tech equipment will include overhead tracking for lifting the children safely, and an under floor mobility system to guide wheelchairs.

The bedrooms will have a remote control system so that children with even slight movement will be able to operate the lights, TV and computer. Next to each bedroom will be a multi-sensory bath or shower room - with Jacuzzis, music and lights.

Although it will be up to the minute in design and with the latest equipment, the aim of the trust is to make the centre homely and welcoming.

The work of the trust started in 1985 when it became the UK's first ever residential rehabilitation service for children with acquired brain injury. Today there are only 20 beds available in the UK for the speciality and 16 of them are at Tadworth.

The history of Tadworth Court started in 1694 when the mansion was built of Leonard Wessel, a merchant, Member of Parliament and Sheriff of Surrey.

From 1927 until 1983, Tadworth Court was the country branch of Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital and then in 1984 the Department of Health transferred management control to the newly created charity the Children's Trust and its remarkable work began the following year.

Most of the children with brain injuries arrive at the Children's Trust unable to walk or talk, many cannot swallow or feed themselves; some cannot breathe independently and depend on artificial ventilation. The majority have severe or profound learning difficulties because of their brain injury and other health needs.

Children who have an acquired brain injury, whether the cause is a road traffic accident or the result of an illness such as meningitis undergo an extensive programme of therapy from the specialist nurses, therapist, carers and teachers.

The trust even has its own school, St Margaret's, which has 33 residential and 11 day places for pupils aged from five to 19.

Because of the degree of brain damage they have suffered they are not forced to try to keep to the national curriculum but follow courses to develop their cognitive and communication, social, motor and life skills.

For James, rehabilitation at the trust was all about picking up the pieces and rearranging them so they would make sense and work for him again "It is as though your whole life and everything you can do or know or think or feel are sheets of paper, and they are all stored in this special filing cabinet which is your head," he said.

"When you have a head injury, it is as if someone has taken that filing cabinet, emptied it and all the papers are scattered and muddled up. Some are even missing.

"What the trust did for me was to pick up all the papers and give them back to me, sorted out and organised. When a paper was missing, I learnt new ways to do things and I learnt how to sort out my own papers for myself.

"Without the trust, I'd never have been able to achieve this much. Not only did they rebuild my skills, they also rebuilt my confidence. I think I've been given a second chance."

There are several major fundraising events coming up including the annual golf day at the prestigious RAC club at Epsom and a dinner at the House of Commons hosted by Sir Paul Beresford, Mole Valley's MP.

The trust is delighted to hear from anyone who would like to help raise money for the cause from simple local events supported by young children to black tie balls.

For details on how to support the work of the trust visit thechildrenstrust.org.uk