How to Fund your Sensory Needs
Nowadays, every school understands the need for a sensory space to calm, regulate, and reduce anxiety. All schools would love to have these needs catered to, the only issue we ever encounter is funding.
If your school doesn’t have the funds, we’ve outlined a few tips below that have proven very successful in helping deliver your calming space. These funding ideas range from, school fundraising, accessing corporate social responsibility support through local businesses, to seeking out local charitable backing from Lions/Rotary/Variety Clubs etc.
These tried and tested routes have proven to be excellent ways to help in delivering funding. Parents influence in fundraising can be great and far reaching, leveraging support from local employers, businesses and following up with charitable contacts. It’s important to understand that a calming space is not just for ASD/ADHD pupils. All children with anxiety (and that’s a lot of the student population nowadays) will benefit from this space. Local businesses, charities, Lions/Rotary Clubs, families, all love to get behind supporting a project like this, as it covers children, disability, and education, all rolled into one. That’s considered gold-dust, by charities because it’s such a worthy project to support and deliver. It beats ridding a area of graffiti or weeds!
School Fundraising
This is typically run by the Principal, SEN Teacher, or a passionate parent, by harnessing parental enthusiasm to improve the school environment, for all children. Typically, this method is used to top-up a shortfall in the monies required. Go fund me, cake sales, supermarket bag packing, and parents whip arounds, are all tried and trusted methods.
CSR – Corporate Social Responsibility
This method of support has proven to be really successful over the last few years, is quick and is also very underutilised. Many businesses nowadays are looking for local community projects to support, by donating money in a tax efficient manner. The businesses gain from receiving commercial kudos by giving something back to the community in a visible manner, they thereby benefit from positive marketing exposure to be placed on their website/brochures. This reflects well on their business, showing that they’ve given something back to the local community. Donating for a calming space is considered marketing gold dust. All the school needs to do is find a willing business, pose for a handover ribbon-cut for awareness with local newpapers. About 10% of our Pods/Rooms are now funded in this way. This also applies in DEIS/economically disadvantaged areas, as many parents-employees may work in businesses that would love to support this type of project.
Lions/Rotary/Variety Clubs
These charitable Clubs are run by business people with the sole purpose is to find projects to support and give something back to their local community. They’re charities for entrepreneurs who want to give something back to society. You’ll seldom find a more worthy project than one that delivers for children, disability, & education, all rolled into one. One University had 4 Sensory Pods funded entirely in this way.
Hopefully this has provided some ideas to get behind by positively utilising the far reaching contacts of the most invested people in your school – the parents.
