The Rainbow Centre

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Welcome to the Rainbow Centre

Specialists in conductive education helping children with Cerebral Palsy throughout the South of England.

Latest news - June 2008

The Rainbow Centre has reached the semi-finals of The National Lottery Awards! This is an annual search to find the UK 's best Lottery-funded projects.

PLEASE
VOTE FOR US - VOTE FOR US - VOTE FOR US - VOTE FOR US - VOTE FOR US

Our Play Away WILD garden project is competing against nine others in the Best Environment Project category, with the chance of winning a £2,000 prize but we need your votes to help us!

The first round of public voting runs from 16 June - 4 July, please visit: www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk/awards and click on the Best Environmental Project category and cast your vote. Its just one click, no registration to complete so please just 'do it now' or call 0845 386 5697 (landline calls are BT lo-call rate).

The three projects with the most votes in each category will make it through to the final round of public voting (July 21st - August 8 th ).

Don't forget to vote before the 4th July please!

Thank you for supporting us.

The Garden of Rainbows & Play Away WILD Garden

The one million pounds we raised for our new building was not enough to develop the specialist play areas we wanted for our back garden (see below), or to "finish off" the barren area at the front of the building, so we set about fundraising for this 'Play Away' project.

We applied to The Big Lottery, Peoples Millions grant programme, which is aimed at helping to make the local community a better place in which to live by improving the environment. After careful vetting by the Big Lottery, the public chooses the winning project by telephone vote. The promotional film about our project was screened on ITV " Meridian Tonight" on Tuesday 14th November 2006, when the public was asked to vote between ours and one other project. Following this broadcast we were thrilled to win the public vote and received almost £50,000 towards the Play Away Activity project.

A huge thank-you to all who voted for us, to other funders of this project and of course to the Big Lottery People's Millions

The Garden of Rainbows is our main specialist play 'activity' area and sensory garden, designed for children and adults with disabilities attending the Rainbow Centre and from the local community.

Key features include:

Full disabled easy access for people with disabilities of all ages.
Raised borders for those in wheelchairs.
Sensory garden accessible for people of all ages and abilities.
Play equipment specially designed for children and adults with motor impairments.
Specialist safety flooring that encourages activities whilst reducing the risk of injuries.

Together with Hand Made Places and Sarah Wheeldon of Sauterelle , we developed plans for a specialist activity area and sensory garden for adults and children with motor disabilities, that would also encourage our children to practise what they have learned in the classroom. In addition we planned a less structured 'dedicated wild garden' area at the front of the building.

A Community Consultation phase was undertaken

We invited over 200 local organisations, companies and charities to a community consultation open day. 133 of these responded positively with over 30 different organisations turning up on the day itself.

We established some significant mutually beneficial relationships and following the input received after the Open Day, we revised our plans slightly, (incorporating feedback received), in order to ensure that the activity area is designed to be fully inclusive and accessible to people with disabilities of all ages, particularly for those outside of the organisation.

HMS Collingwood Community Service Day.

A group of students from HMS Collingwood helped move the assault course from our previous location at Cams Hill School .
Volunteers from SEGRO , BDO Stoy Hayward and the local LIONS Club all worked extremely hard to ensure the planting was done in time for the official opening. The Rainbow team and children also got involved with the planting!

Volunteers from HMS Collingwood also worked hard doing the final cleaning up exercise.

The balance of funding required was raised by generous donations from the:

District Lions Clubs
Lions International
St James' Place Foundation
The Toy Trust
Hampshire County Council
The Foyle Foundation
The Rotary Club of Portsmouth North
Power FM's Help A Local Child.




... follow this link to see how the garden progressed ...
The Garden of Rainbows was officially opened on Thursday 20th September 2007. ... follow this link for photos of the opening ...
Play Away WILD Project

We had an overgrown garden that not only looked unsightly but was inaccessible.

Several suggestions were discussed internally and it was decided that funding needed to be sought to help us develop this area.

Having only recently moved into our new purpose built centre, we wanted to be able to use this project to encourage greater community involvement, provide volunteering opportunities, whilst also raising awareness of conservation issues that fitted with our own recycling schemes.

Following the grant given by The Big Lottery (Breathing Places) of £9,905 we commenced a Community Consultation phase.

We invited over 200 local organisations, companies and charities to a community consultation open day. 133 of these responded positively with over 40 attending on the day itself.
We established some significant mutually beneficial relationships and following the input received after the Open Day, we revised our plans, (incorporating feedback received), in order to ensure that the WILD garden would be fully inclusive and accessible to people with motor disabilities of all ages, from outside of the organisation as well as within.

Sarah Wheeldon of Sauterelle (The Daily Telegraph Young Garden Designer of the Year) designed a fully accessible garden suitable for children and adults.

The Project management team led by John Chaffe of Alanbrooke Consulting Ltd, then discussed and agreed the action plan

Plants were chosen, in collaboration with Hampshire Wildlife Trust. The garden was designed to be fully inclusive, accessible to people of all ages and abilities as well as encouraging more wildlife, raising awareness of conservation issues and generating relationships with other organisation, the community and local businesses.

The garden consists of several different dedicated habitats to attract various forms of wildlife such as birds , amphibians, reptiles, insects, and mammals.
It will have nesting boxes for birds and solitary bees , log piles to provide shelter for insects, lizards and slow worms .
We have planted water wise and beneficial native plants that will attract insects, as well as allowing self- establishment of wild flowers by minimizing maintenance and intervention.

Initial ground works were undertaken by Landmark Construction Ltd and the land stripped back, which took around three weeks to complete.

We also used 'Filcris' a recycled material for the path edgings and local suppliers for all materials (wherever possible) to limit the environmental impact of transportation.

Hippo Waste also helped by providing waste bags free of charge, with the added benefit that all materials taken away would be recycled appropriately.

Volunteers from SEGRO , BDO Stoy Hayward and the local LIONS and Rotary Clubs all worked extremely hard to lay the path and ensure the planting was done on time.


As well as children and young adults with motor disabilities from the Centre and their families it is expected that a large number of specialist groups from the local community will use the garden.

As well as children and young adults with motor disabilities from the Centre and their families it is expected that a large number of specialist groups from the local community will use the garden.

"This garden will encourage wildlife to The Rainbow Centre, provide an opportunity for the children and adults with disabilities, (who attend the centre) to see wildlife in a natural habitat and raise awareness of a 'garden philosophy' to wildlife conservation. Play Away WILD will also encourage greater community involvement, volunteering and help to enhance the delivery of our Conductive Education services." Helen Somerset How - Appeal Director and Co-Founder

This project would not have been made possible without the funding from:
The Big Lottery BBC Breathing Places fund.

More information at: http://www.breathingplaces.org/public/search?has_js=1&location=po14&x=26&y=9

We would in particular also like to thank: the local community for their support, volunteers and help received from: Fareham Borough Council BDO Stoy Hayward The Lions Clubs The Rotary clubs SEGRO Hampshire Wildlife Trust
Elliotts Builders Merchants Peter Hill Photography BBC Breathing Places The Bruce Wakefield Charitable Trust Volunteers of HMS Collingwood The Tree Council's "Tree for Schools" Fund