Jessica’s story

My daughter Jessica has hydrocephalus, cerebral palsy and global development delay. When she was still a baby, our health visitor referred us to the Kids crèche in Birchwood, Lincolnshire. She’s been attending for nearly two years now, and it has made an enormous difference to her – and to me.

Jessica loves interacting at the crèche, particularly joining in with song words and actions. I’ve also watched her become more confident with messy play activities from her time at Kids – initially she was very reluctant to touch new textures. Her speech and Makaton skills have really improved too, she likes to come home and tell me what she has learned each day.

When Jessica started at Kids, I felt incredibly nervous leaving her, it took me around six months to have the confidence to just drop her off and leave. Now when we get to the crèche, Jessica knows where we are and is excited to be there and very keen to wave me off so that she can go and play with her friends. She’s often reluctant to leave when I collect her!

It’s lovely to be able to have a couple of hours to do something for myself too, in fair weather I often take the opportunity to go for a long walk with our dog. It also gives me the opportunity to go to the supermarket as I can’t do this with Jessica. I can relax knowing Jessica is in safe hands and with people who understand her physical and medical needs.

Lockdown has hit everyone hard, I didn’t expect to still be hearing from the staff but they have kept in touch regularly to check how we are and whether we need anything. It’s so lovely to have them in our lives and we’re looking forward to being able to attend sessions again once it’s safe to do so.