Princess Anne to visit Kingswood charity Sense to see its work for the deaf and blind

A CHARITY is set to receive a royal seal of approval with Princess Anne visiting its Kingswood services.

Sense has developed flats to meet the complex needs of people who are deaf and blind.

The Princess Royal will visit the flats later this month before officially opening the deaf-blind charity's new IT and communications suite at the Woodside Family Centre.

Sense has been providing community services in the area to help adults and children since 2011. In that time, the number of individuals the charity supports locally has increased by 50 per cent.

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The charity helps deaf-blind people access help with practical, everyday tasks and to live as full and independent a life as possible.

Among the children the charity supports is four-year-old Matthew, who has hearing loss, visual problems and cerebral palsy. He started going to Sense's Woodside Centre two years ago, and with the support of specialist staff has learnt how to communicate while his family has benefited from advice about social care and local authority services tailored to Matthew's needs.

His Mum, Helen Saukuru, said: "Since Matthew has been going to Woodside he started learning sign language and he can communicate with his family and interact with other children. His confidence has grown, the difference is immense, he's a different child.

"I know this sounds dramatic, but Sense has absolutely changed our life. The whole family has changed. Being able to talk with Matthew, share experiences with other parents who have gone through similar journeys and get advice from highly-trained professionals who understand the challenges we are facing, has made a huge difference."

Peter Cheer, director of operational services for Sense, said: "We are thrilled to be welcoming the Princess Royal to visit our services in Bristol and find out about some of the exciting developments within our community services.

"We think these are great examples of how quite small amounts of appropriately trained one to one support can make real differences to the independence and well being of deaf and blind adults and children.

These developments would not have been possible without the invaluable contributions of donors and charitable trusts as well as our local authority partners and we would like to thank them for their continued support."