21 Plus is a charity which supports, nurtures and empowers children and young people with Downs Syndrome and their families.Our activities focus on building the communication skills of our children and young people, providing opportunities to develop friendships and independence and ensuring that families have the necessary information and support to ensure their child reaches their potential.
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21 Plus offers many services to children and young people with Down’s Syndrome in South East Wales.
Talk Time:
Talk Time is a speech, language and communication group for children with Down’s syndrome. It is run by our expert “Symbol” trained co-workers, who provide a very specialist speech and language session tailored to the learning profile of a child with Down’s syndrome. Sessions run on a weekly basis throughout term time for children aged 6 months to 11 years.
Youth group:
Talk About is a youth group for young people with Down’s syndrome aged from 11-25. These sessions currently run fortnightly. During these sessions there is an hour of communication-focused activities, run by our “Symbol” trained co-workers. This circle group model follows on from the speech and language groups for younger children. We also offer a variety of trips and opportunities including bowling, surfing and climbing to name just a few.
Summer Camp:
The Annual Sport and Speech Camp offers intensive, specialist speech and language input from Symbol UK combined with a range of sporting activities to school aged children with Down’s syndrome. This now includes a residential camp for older teens and young adults.
School Support Service:
Our school support team can support both primary and secondary schools to include pupils with Down’s syndrome effectively in school life and learning; our team have experience of supporting children in a variety of settings and with a variety of challenges. The service can offer observations of pupils and provide recommendations and a report. Whole school ‘twilight’ sessions, teaching assistant sessions, follow-up reviews and remote support are also available.
Testimonials:
“21 Plus has been a lifeline to our family when we felt we didn’t belong anywhere. All of their services have been of benefit to us and the team supporting our son.“
“Talk Time is a vital, weekly opportunity for our son to develop his speech and language skills under the expert guidance of the 21 Plus team. Our son usually attends weekly sessions along with his one-to-one support from his school. The sessions provide weekly training and targets for the teaching assistant as well as our son. During the pandemic, 21 plus continued to provide these sessions remotely using MS Teams. Our son has also had the chance to meet up with his peers; it is very important that our son is able to maintain and nurture his friendships with other children within the 21 plus group. “
“Amelia had a brilliant time at Summer Camp. It was really helpful to me to receive funding for this camp as otherwise Amelia would not have been able to attend as I couldn’t afford for her to go otherwise.
*Amelia received a free place on camp thanks to our incredible donations and grants to 21 Plus which means we are able to offer financial support to those that need it.”
Agnes, mum to Amelia – aged 11