Sandwell Parents for Disabled Children (SPDC) seeks to ensure that all disabled children, young people and their families shall have access to a range of positive play and leisure opportunities enabling them to be safe, healthy and happy and that focus on enjoyment and achievement. 

Our dedicated team provides a range of activities to suit all tastes and abilities. Over the years, we have enabled hundreds of families throughout Sandwell to take part in everyday activities such as football, table tennis and athletics (to name just a few!) as well as more specialist activities such as hydrotherapy, trampoline and rebound therapy, and sensory rooms.

Families love to take part in these activities together as it strengthens family bonds and builds positive memories, both of which help to sustain them during challenging times. We believe that the family that plays together, stays together.

With motor neurone disease, known as MND, messages from the motor neurones gradually stop reaching the muscles. This leads the muscles to weaken, stiffen and waste, which can affect how you walk, talk, eat, drink and breathe. Some people also get changes to their thinking and behaviour, but the disease affects everyone differently. Not all symptoms will affect everyone, or in the same order. Symptoms also progress at varying speeds, which makes the course of the disease difficult to predict. MND is life-shortening and there is no cure. Although the disease will progress, symptoms can be managed to help achieve the best possible quality of life.

MND affects up to 5,000 adults in the UK at any one time. There is a 1 in 300 risk of getting MND across a lifetime. It can affect adults of any age, but is more likely to affect people over 50. As motor neurone disease is not common, general health and social care professionals may not see many cases. This means it is important to seek out specialists who have appropriate experience in its treatment and care – usually with referral to neurological services.