MedEquip4Kids is very pleased to be working in partnership with Birtenshaw Hall Children’s Charitable Trust in Bromley Cross, Bolton. Birtenshaw Hall is a special school and children’s home for children with profound physical and learning difficulties. Over half of the children at the school have severely limited mobility and have very restricted independent movement.At present all of the physically disabled children at the school are in manual wheelchairs, needing carers to move them at all times.

We have undertaken to help provide a SMART chair – this device is designed to accommodate the child’s own wheelchair, so for a short time the child can experience independent movement. The chair acts as a platform which can incorporate any wheelchair – including the larger ones that some of the children use at the hall. The child can then use a motion sensor or joystick, depending on their needs, and can experience independent movement for the first time.

Gaining control of their own movement for the first time is something that gives profoundly disabled children an enormous boost, and then encourages them to begin to work towards independent mobility. The controls of the Smile platform can be adjusted to allow limited, slow movements to begin with, and to ignore involuntary jerky movements when a child becomes excited. As the child grows in confidence, more movements can be added, and the child can then reverse and turn the chair. This will then allow the child to develop the ability to control movement,  with the aim for some children of eventually controlling a motorised wheelchair.

The Smile Platform and the various accessories required will cost £10,364.00.   Donations of £4,325 have already been received by us and the school, so we are seeking a further £6,039.