A sensory oasis that can speak volumes (From Worcester News)

A sensory oasis that can speak volumes

11:20am Friday 2nd July 2010 in

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FOR centre manager Jane Campbell, doing the job she loves is about that eureka moment of connection with another human being.

“We have a man here regularly called Nicky who can’t communicate by talking,” she said.

“When he’s happy he smiles and when he’s sad he lets you know.

“And I thought after a few months of him coming here, that I knew him. But we started him on music and then through sound, through a particular musical instrument, he’s been able to communicate directly with me.

“We were interacting with each other, through different instruments, communicating and it was a wonderful feeling.”

Miss Campbell is one of six fulltime staff at the Snoezelen Centre which quietly and professionally is doing the vital and necessary work to give adults and youngsters with complex needs a chance to experience new sensations and experiences. The concept of Snoezelen – a Dutch-originated word roughly combing ‘smelling’ and ‘snoozing’ – came about from research on older people with dementia carried out in the 1970s.

The research found that stimulating people in rooms using coloured light, different sounds, and touch helped ease agitation.

In Worcester, the premises in Turnpike Close was only one of a handful in the country and was set up in 1993 by the centre’s charity chief Penny Bews after a determined fund-raising effort.

Since then, the centre has continued to build the services it provides from multi-sensory rooms and soft play areas, to music rooms and a sensory garden, mostly to people with complex needs, autistic spectrum disorders and sensory impairments, aged nought to 80.

It even has its own school of rock and in another pioneering first, one young girl user who is deaf and autistic passed a music exam accredited by the London College of Music Examining Board.

Despite an unending battle to raise enough money to stay open every year, the centre is now also trying to provide more outreach services and has just started new Extend sessions.

Originally developed for older people, but useful for all ages and abilities, Extend involves gentle exercises to music.

Snoezelen also has its own drama club Rainbow and is offering limited music sessions out in community centres and residential care homes to groups and one-toone.“ It’s about giving users control and having choice. Many of them just don’t have much control outside the centre,” says Miss Campbell. “The emphasis is very much on ability, not disability.”

Walking through the building, leased from the University of Worcester, there are hundreds of pictures of the centre’s 450 regular users smiling, laughing, hugging, all clearly enjoying the centre’s facilities.

And there’s no corporate-looking reception but more photographs of grinning faces, cuddly toys and home-made money collection boxes.

There are notices about upcoming activities, fund-raisers, services on offer and brightlycoloured displays made by the users and staff.

There is the tactile corridor that is good for people with visual or hearing impairments, including a wall that plays piano notes when you touch it, a vibrating chair, and an aroma box that wafts four different comforting smells when you press the right button.

All the while you are followed into the different rooms by music, including at one point Baby Love by the Supremes. “By far the busiest room we have is the hydropool – the Jacuzzi,” said Miss Campbell.

“Because we’ve got a hoist, absolutely anybody can use it as well. But we’ve got a long waiting list to use it.”

Miss Campbell joined the centre staff 12 years ago and introduced music to the centre’s experiences a short time afterwards.

She clearly enjoys what she does and showed her skill with an interesting musical instrument called the sound beam, which looks like a microphone with a flat, rather than rounded end.

The flat end projects an invisible light beam, which when broken for example by a person’s hand, produces sound from a speaker.

The music room is packed with visual and audio devices, and has the exciting feel and look of the inside of Doctor Who’s Tardis packed with voice-activated light boards, mixing sets, and humming with weird noises.

Services are self-referred, and a charge is applied but this covers only about 60 per cent of the running costs for the service.

“The rest is grant aid or donations, which are vital,” says Mrs Campbell.

“We’ve got some volunteers but we’re so under-resourced we can only have so many volunteers because we don’t have the time to spend training any more up.”

The centre is now looking for a volunteer driver who can give a few hours a week and knows how to dance a step or two to help do outreach work.

But the pressure on Snoezelen and other third sector smaller city charities like the Myriad Centre is increasing amid budget cuts nationally and locally.

Snoezelen Centre can be contacted on 01905 748229; web: worcestersnoezelen.org.uk; and at 3 Turnpike Close, Worcester, WR2 6AB.