Local children with special needs are fighting even harder for their Saturday sports club to stay open after some were turned away from other facilities.
The Saturday SEN Club in Rotherhithe offers free sports to children with special educational needs and is attended by around 90 children every week.
Despite serving the area for nearly two decades, they will soon have to close after they missed the deadline to apply for funding.
The club, which many parents have described as ‘life-saving’, has an open-door policy and has ‘never turned a child away.’
Since the news broke before Christmas that they did not get their funding – which would have sustained them for three more years – parents began their campaign to save the vital facility.
This included starting a fundraising page. It costs the club £45,000 per year to run.
As a result of the ongoing campaign, the council has agreed to fund them until the end of the academic year. But manager Glyn Davies explained because they can’t apply for another three years, this still means the club has to close.
Rotherhithe SEN sports club could close next year after 17 years of serving local children
“We’re grateful that the council has agreed to fund us until the summer,” Glyn told us. “But after that, we can’t afford to stay open.”
The funding they lost out on – known as short breaks funding – was received instead by three other facilities: Whippersnappers, an outdoor and indoor activities club catering for both Southwark and Lambeth, Endorphins – an arts and crafts club and SportWorks – the only reasonable alternative as it offers sports.
Southwark Council told us the short breaks offer was widened to include a range of activities after young people, parents, and guardians ‘were consulted.’
However, some parents claimed that when they heard that the Rotherhithe club was closing, they reached out to the new sports provider – only to be ‘turned away.’
This is because SportWorks offers a staff-to-participant ratio of 1:4 – when most of the children at the Rotherhithe club require one-to-one.
Even though the other two providers – Whippersnappers and Endorphins – do offer one-to-one, so can work with children with profound needs, they are not sports clubs.
Single mum Aida said her son, Reuel, 16 has been going to the club for 11 years and has ‘never missed a week.’
“When I heard the club was closing I applied for the other sports group,” she explained. “But they said they could not take him because he needs one-to-one support.”
Aida explained that at the Saturday Club, Reuel – who has autism and is non-verbal – gets a tailored training programme. “He runs on the treadmill and he does trampoline.
“All week, Reuel looks forward to coming.”
She added that this club was the ‘only time’ he got the chance to exercise.
Another regular at the club is nine-year-old Olivia.
Olivia has Prader-Willi syndrome, which means she struggles with her weight. But since going to the club her mum Denise said it helps keep her healthy: “This club helps her a lot.
“Mentally and physically it wouldn’t be nice if she couldn’t come here any more. She loves it here.”
These concerns were echoed by a significant number of other parents – who said they were scared to tell their children of the news. “Children with autism hate to break their routine,” a parent told us.
“If they’ve been coming here for years and can’t come anymore they won’t understand.”
Michelle said her son Nico, who is 18, was turned away from the new sports club due to his age.
“There’s no other sports facility for him to go to if this one closes – because he is seen as an adult now.”
On this issue, Southwark Council told us there is a range of local provisions for older children aged 16-25 (click here for more information).
A council spokesperson added: “We recognise that these changes may be unsettling for some families as we work towards to creating a fairer, more equitable offer for the many families who have a child with SEND in Southwark. We will continue to evaluate and identify any areas for further improvement of our short breaks offer, working closely with families and short break providers.”
SportWorks declined to comment.