Cerebral Palsy Cymru
On 17th July, Sacyr’s Communities Team had the pleasure of visiting Cerebral Palsy Cymru’s children's centre in Llanishen after they reached out for support with their retail evaluation. The team arrived at the centre and were greeted by Carwyn Williams, Head of Corporate Partnerships for the organisation. Carwyn gave the team a background on the charity, their aims, the therapy they provide, and the origins of the children’s centre’s inception.
Before the creation of the premises in the mid-1980s, founding members Paul and Yvonne Lubas, Glenys and Bob Evans were taking regular 300-mile round journeys to London’s Bobath centre, in order to receive specialist therapy for their children. Bobath in this context refers to Berta Bobath, founder of the Bobath method and mother of contemporary neurological physiotherapy.
Eventually finding the journey impossible to repeat frequently, the group began fundraising in 1989 in order to find a solution. Four years later, after considerable efforts in fundraising, they were joined by parents across South Wales also seeking accessible treatment for their children, with this collective effort they were able to open Bobath Cymru in June of 1992.
Starting with just four therapists, in its first year they were able to treat 45 children. In 2020, the organisation changed their name to Cerebral Palsy Cymru, to ensure they could be found easily by families living with cerebral palsy.
After a tour of the facility, seeing their therapy rooms, specially designed wellbeing garden and hearing about the intentional ergonomic design of the facilities, the CB team were astonished by the work done by the team, and could not wait to help however possible.
As part of their funding is raised via charity shops across the Cardiff & Barry area, the task assigned to the Community Benefits Team was to assess these stores and create useful feedback on how they might improve. In groups of two, the CB team covered the stores within Cardiff and were able to find improvements that could be made with their help.
We provided some detailed feedback through a comprehensive report, and we're excited to share that a new platform feature is now in the works to assist local charities, inspired by the insights we gathered together.
