Transformation of Springboard's Outdoor Play Area

About Springboard

Springboard is a charity which supports preschool children with special needs (aged 0-5) and their families. 

We are based in Chippenham, Wiltshire, but our catchment area covers the whole of North Wiltshire. We have been successfully helping children and their families since 1976 and are the only specialist service of its kind in the north of the county.

What makes our Chippenham Centre unique and successful is our high staff to child ratios (1:1 or 1:2). In addition, our staff are trained to deal with the specific medical and development needs the children might have.  We are proud Springboard has been rated 'Outstanding' by Ofsted.

Specialist preschool provision is expensive and we do not charge families to attend. Every year we need to raise an additional £140,000 over and above the funding we receive from the local authority, in order to keep helping the families that need us.

Our Project

We recently acquired an outdoor play space which has great potential but it was not designed for children with special needs. Some of the existing play equipment is in desperate need of renewal. Sadly the play area becomes unusable due to the amount of mud and surface water that collects on both the grass and hard surfaces.

Our grand plan is to completely transform the outdoor area to make it into an exciting, inspiring and most importantly safe space for children with special needs.

Why is this outdoor area so important?

At Springboard we love being outside and having fun in the fresh air. We also understand how important outdoor play is for young children's development. We believe passionately our children (all of whom have additional needs) should be able to have greater access to outdoor learning and play experiences.  We want all the Springboard children to have an exciting and stimulating play area regardless of their individual disabilities. Above all want to be able to create that WOW factor for them!

How much will this all cost?

In order to make our dream a reality we need to raise £50,000. Springboard as a charity does not hold funds for large scale projects such as this; we already need to raise £140,000 per year to remain operational. Although we have been successful in obtaining grant funding for some aspects of this play area project, we need your help to raise the remaining £40,000. 

For the purpose of this Crowdfunder project we have split our fundraising into 2 parts:

Phase 1 - Initial Target £22,000 

Phase 2 - Stretch target of a further £18,000

Total target - £40,000

You can view the breakdown of each phase below.

The Detail

If we are successful in raising the money our plan is to:

Phase 1

• Join our existing play area to the new play area to create one large, brand new, open, free-flowing space.
• To re-landscape and resurface the grass covered space to make it both accessible for children with additional needs (wheelchair users, visually impaired etc.) and to address the safety issue of the surface water and mud.
• To install new, fun, exciting and inclusive play equipment to challenge and stimulate our children (e.g. the 'Buzz Tower', 'Mound Olympus', 'Perspex Paint Panels'- see below for photos) and to promote increased physical activity and well-being. 
• To create a flexible, covered, outdoor classroom and meeting space that would offer all year round opportunities for outdoor learning and play regardless of weather conditions and a well ventilated outdoor space where staff can meet privately with parents/therapists/mainstream education settings or hold meetings and training session in a Covid Safe manner.

Phase 1 Total = £22,000

Phase 2

• To install a sunken Elliptical Trampoline within the play area.
• To resurface the areas of the playground covered by the existing wet-pour surface to address the safety issue of surface water.

Phase 2 Total (stretch target) = £18,000 

How can you help?

Springboard is lucky to have supporters both in the local Wiltshire community and further afield so we'd love it if you would donate to help us out. To tempt you we've even put together a list of rewards, small gifts and sponsorship opportunities for you to consider. If you would like any further information about sponsorship opportunities please contact Springboard directly at [email protected].

If you're not able to contribute but like what we are doing please help us to get the word out. Shout about us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn. Please share the link far and wide to friends and work colleagues and talk about our project to family.

Thank you for reading AND thank you for your support.

Wish us luck!

from

All The Team At Springboard