At The Grove Resource Centre, we provide support for people aged 17 and over with learning disabilities and associated needs. Our support is person-centred and tailored to each individual, ensuring they have meaningful, fun-filled experiences at our service.
Our enthusiastic team ensures everyone who visits enjoys a variety of sessions and social interaction, with many special events happening throughout the year.
Supporting you
The centre has been renovated to improve existing facilities and has some fantastic sessions and equipment.
This includes both sensory-therapeutic sessions, opportunities for the people we support to socialise, and a range of creative activities, to help them build self-confidence, develop new skills, and maintain positive mental and physical health.
We offer day opportunities and provide respite support for parents or carers. As well as this, we can provide flexible outreach support to people living in their own home or family home in the community.
We work alongside individuals to provide a package of support that is unique to them – from support looking after their home and going shopping, to getting to college or work, meeting up with friends, socialising or taking part in sports.
This can be offered on a regular, weekly basis or as and when required, depending on the needs of the individual.
How we can help
Our facilities include activity rooms, two sensory areas including a ball pool sensory room, an open plan lounge, dining area and function room, kitchen and a garden. We also have our own hydrotherapy pool.
We can also provide additional support such as:
Workshops – We offer wood workshops for all abilities. We have a highly trained carpenter that supports people to complete their own projects, such as building their own furniture, toys, games etc. We also offer larger ‘up-cycling projects’, where we help people to restore old furniture to a new, shabby chic quality.
Well-being – We have a fully trained beauty therapist who makes people feel great by offering foot, hand and arm massages, foot spa’s and moisturisation. She can also beautify people in nail and make up sessions, and train people in make-up techniques etc. if they have a passion to do so.
Communication and self-advocacy – Communication sessions focus on enabling the people we support to communicate their needs to improve their quality of life and wellbeing. This can include the use of switches, signing, speech and language therapy, touch-screen computers, iPads and PECs books to name just a few methods. We empower individuals to achieve their goals, whether that’s learning to read, using a computer or entering paid employment.
Physiotherapy – Our Physiotherapy Department offers clinical rehabilitation treatments for neurological, respiratory, and orthopaedic conditions.
Some of the treatments we offer include:
- Coordination and balance re-training
- Functional activities promoting independence and daily life skills
- Mobility and strength training
- Improving exercise tolerance
- Normalising muscle tone
- Strengthening program
- Posture re-education program
- Falls prevention program
- Aquatic therapy
Treatments can be delivered at home, in service or at our well-equipped centre with access to extra facilities, such as our gymnasium and hydrotherapy pool.
Physiotherapy and Aquatic Therapy sessions can also be delivered on a one-to-one basis following an assessment and bespoke treatment plan.
Individuals receive a full assessment before a treatment plan is devised and tailored to their individual needs.
The department is led by qualified neuro-physiotherapist, Radoslaw Filipczuk and his small, highly skilled group of therapy assistants and physiotherapists.
Equals Moving On– an easy to use, flexible, all inclusive curriculum and assessment package for young adults with learning difficulties.
It is a national accreditation scheme supported by advisers who co-ordinate a regional network for training and external moderation.
‘Equals Moving On’ provides a personalised learning approach which celebrates achievement, focusing on person appropriate subject areas including ‘Leisure and Recreation’, ‘Daily Living Skills’, ‘Work Related Learning’, ‘Creativity’ and ‘World Studies’.
Our activities
We have two sports co-ordinators that facilitate our external activities which include bowling, cycling, rambling and canoeing. This includes:
Creative arts –to enable the people we support to express themselves. We provide an imaginative and friendly environment where everyone feels valued and undertake activities such as clay work on a potter’s wheel, graffiti art, painting, sewing and sensory projects -the possibilities are endless.
Cookery skills and the ‘Working Kitchen’ – Cookery is a great way to explore our senses. Throughout the term the whole group gets involved in choosing different food-based projects to learn the process of washing, preparing and cooking different foods. The people we support can develop their motor skills by using adapted equipment, and also learn new skills they can use in their kitchens back at home. The working kitchen offers individuals the chance to be a trainee chef in a real time working environment with our fully trained Chef. During these session, they are given the chance to learn the skills needed for future work placements in the catering world.
Multi-sensory – We have two multisensory rooms offering different experiences: a snoezelen room and a multisensory room. They both work to achieve the same outcome but in opposite ways. Sensory sessions are non-directive and individuals can make their own choices about how to use equipment and discover different ways of communicating and learning. The rooms include a ‘Magic Carpet’, a ball pool, waterbeds, fibre optics, bubble tubes, soft walls, soft floors, cushions and mirror balls and sensory boxes full of equipment for intensive interaction.
Swimming and on-site sports – Our gymnasium offers a variety of accessible sporting activities and gym games. We have three specifically designed ‘tri-cycles’ to allow everyone the opportunity to try cycling. Swimming is also available and is recognised as one of the best forms of therapy for people with disabilities.
Music – These sessions are fun and help individuals to experience a wide range of music. Each week we explore different areas and offer a wide range of percussion and instruments for use.
The team
We have a skilled, experienced teaching and support team, who work alongside individuals to ensure outcomes are achieved in a fun and educational way.