AYEAR after she came up with the idea for a centre for disabled children, a Worcester mother is looking forward to the future.

New Hope in Wells Road, Ronkswood, opened its doors in the summer.

Jean Wilson’s youngest daughter Emily was diagnosed with severe learning disabilities and autism when she was just 17 months old.

The mum-of-three, of Chelmsford Court, Ronkswood, said she knew straight away that Emily, now seven, had learning disabilities.

Ms Wilson, aged 48, said: “She was a very unhappy baby, not very cuddly and she wasn’t reaching the milestones you would expect, which I knew from my other children.”

Ms Wilson also knew from experience, having grown up with a sister with autism and previously working with adults with learning disabilities.

The family moved back to Worcester from Aberdeenshire when Emily was three and Ms Wilson started looking for holiday provisions for her.

“I needed somewhere for her to go so I could get some respite,” she said.

“Emily doesn’t sleep.”

Emily was enrolled in Little Blossoms in Upton-upon-Severn, but stopped going when she got bigger than the other children there.

So she was sent to Smart Heart in Bishop Perowne, which was run by Sally Wyatt, who is now Ms Wilson’s business partner .

Ms Wilson said: “Emily was the first disabled child to go there, but it worked really well.

“But as word got around, Sally found she couldn’t deal with the amount of requests she was getting, and we teamed up from there.

“We thought about the number of people who needed this type of service and the idea snowballed.”

Ms Wilson, a tenant of Worcester Community Housing, approached the company and they offered her a building in Wells Road rent free for two years.

They received £10,000 of lottery funding, £15,000 from Mencap and £7,000 from the Round Table to start the not-for-profit organisation.

New Hope employs two paid members of staff and eight volunteers, who are all specially trained. The organisation is regulated by Ofsted.

The three main aims of New Hope are for children to have fun, to provide a safe environment and to give parents a break when they need it.

As a parent of a disabled child, Ms Wilson said: “Ninety-nine per cent of the time you just mootle along with your life but it’s in your social life that it hits you.

“When I take Emily to Acorns, other mums are there with their children and it’s two-fold – the parents get a break and the children have fun.

“But I have to be with Emily all the time. She has no sense of danger, nor how to interact with children and she’s tiny for her age, so it’s easy for her to be pushed.

“I have to stay with her for the whole two hours. It’s when you look around you then, that’s when you feel the loneliest.

“Some parents don’t go to mainstream sessions because it can be uncomfortable and for me, as a parent, that’s what drove me to start New Hope.

“We wanted to do it because there’s such a lack of provisions out there that are specialised.”

New Hope offers disabled children the chance to do whatever they want to do, and staff find out what the children like by using photographs or by asking the parents.

Ms Wilson said: “Our children have as much right to go out and have fun, it’s just harder.

“But the more you take them places, the more they can get used to it.”

The organisation is hoping to start a pre-school, but Ms Wilson knows parents will have to approve before they move forward with the idea.

“Parents, I think they are a bit worried,” she said.

“When you have a child with special needs you’re less likely to just go for it. It’s a lot more complicated.

“Parents come here and they need to get to know us and trust us and see what we do.”

She said the group has also been well received by people living in Ronkswood.

“The locals here have been absolutely fantastic,” said Ms Wilson.

“We have worked really hard to include the neighbourhood during the development of the building. It was empty for two years and there was a lot of gossip about what would be done with it.”

But the organisation is all about the children.

“We don’t want to be reliant on grant funding,” said Ms Wilson.

“We want to be sustainable so we can help more children.

“There’s no money in this, it’s not the motivator.

“We just wanted to have a service we are proud of, where people can go away and say my child had a good day today.

PICTURE CAPTION: HAPPY: Damion Wright, aged five, plays in the sandpit while New Hope co-director Jean Wilson looks on.