What's new
September 2011
The Speech Language and Hearing Centre Celebrates Winning London Marathon Award
Earlier this month, Christopher Place the Speech, Language and Hearing Centre won an award for raising the highest average amount per runner in 2011's London Marathon. Christopher Place has a number of charity Gold Bond places in the Marathon each year and is reliant on the money raised to help babies and children under 5 with hearing impairment, delay in speech, language and communication or developmental delays.
Over the last 15 years the charity has helped over 1,300 children to speak for themselves. 80% of the children we help enter mainstream schools, this compares to 20% of children from other special schools. It is the only centre of its kind in the country.
Penny Lipson the volunteer who organises the runners for Christopher Place said “We raised about £9k more per runner than anyone else. On average people raise around £2k and our average was £11k per runner. We were presented with a beautiful cut glass vase which is now in pride of place in Christopher Place. I started organising the runners for the London Marathon 16 years ago, before the centre was open. I was struck by how little help and support there was available for the parents of children with speech and language special needs. It was dreadful for them, I feel really proud when I show people around Christopher Place, it is just so inspiring to see the work that is done there, indeed I feel lucky to be involved.
It's not just the money that makes a difference. A doctor ran 2 years running for us. As he found out more about what we do he realised he could refer children direct to us whereas previously he didn't know about that option. Spreading the word is terribly important.”
Our runners range from parents of children who attended Christopher Place to those friends who having heard about the work we do are driven to find ways of supporting the children. Len Siskind, one of this years runners said “ My son was one of the first children to receive support from Christopher Place, I was told that he will never verbally communicate with another human being. He was falling behind his peers and was being put in corners for being a naughty boy when really he just couldn't understand. Thanks to the help he received from Christopher Place he caught up with his friends and is now at university. I promised to run every 10 years to support them. It was a fantastic experience.”
We still have places for the London Marathon 2012 so if anyone fancies helping us to win this award again next year please get in touch.”
Rose Johnson the Chief Executive said “We are incredibly grateful to everyone involved for all their hard work. Both the runners and Penny all put in so much and it really does make such a difference to our special children.”
For more information on Gold Bond places please contact Penny Lipson penny@npp.co.uk
Celebrating 15 Years and Grand Opening of our new Top Floor Extension
On the 12 June 2011 we had a fantastic party in the Centre to celebrate our 15 Year ‘Birthday’ and also to open our new Top Floor Extension.
It was wonderful to see so many of our previous children again and how well they are doing, as well as many of our wonderful donors and supporters. Despite the weather we managed to have 234 people in our little Centre.
We were delighted to find that with the superb donations before the event and the wonderful additions from the raffle etc. during the event we were able to raise around £28,000. We are thrilled as this will secure more resources for our special children.
Our extension had been made possible by a generous grant from Camden Local Authority as well as a couple of other private donors. The work started in January 2011 and finished on time in March 2011. We now have a new, spacious classroom, a therapy room and a small outside terrace on our top floor.