Sponsered Walk

Yesterday I did a walk with my mum for Portage.
Portage is Portage is a home-visiting educational service for pre-school children with additional support needs and their families.
The first such scheme was developed in Portage, Wisconsin, USA in the early 1970's to meet the needs of the young children living in rural communities. Since its introduction in the UK, the success of the approach has lead to an increasing number of services being developed nationally. There are now 140 services registered with the National Portage Association in Britain.
The aim of Portage is to support the development of young children's play, communication and relationships and to encourage full participation in day to day life within the family and beyond the home. Portage services are committed to securing inclusion in the wider community for all children and families in their own right. Support offered through Portage is based on the principle that parents are the key figures in the care and development of their child and Portage aims to help parents to be confident in this role whatever their child's needs may be.
In order to do this the Portage Home Visitor works alongside parents offering practical help and ideas to:
make learning fun for all the family;
encourage a child's interests;
and address problematic situations.
In Rotherham the Portage workers salaries are funded, but other outreach activities aren’t. So yesterday I did a sponsored walk around the children’s centre in Rotherham with my Mum, it was a really nice day (apart from the weather was horrible, very wet!). We managed and hopefully we will have raised a lot of money for the service. We walked about 11miles, I never realised that Rotherham was that hilly!!!!