One of our funded projects is with the Little Sunflowers Childcare setting run by AVOW, the County Voluntary Council for Wrexham, supporting children and families in Plas Madoc, to help with early years development and providing support and guidance for parents.

We have recently been hearing about Benjamin’s story. Benjamin is 4 years old and has attended Little Sunflowers for just over a year.

When he was a week-old Benjamin was diagnosed with Phenylketonuria also known as PKU at his routine heel prick test.

This means he cannot eat foods that contain protein, causing his diet to be extremely limited. Benjamin is only allowed 5g of protein a day (there is 7g in 1 egg) and can never eat meat, fish or dairy and on a day-to-day basis this is very hard to manage. His Mum must do his bloods weekly and he is on medication 3 times a day.  Finding a childcare setting that could offer the appropriate level of specialist family support was challenging. But when Benjamin started attending Little Sunflowers his Mum said she was over the moon by the reassurance she got from the amazing staffing team. She was given daily reports and offered a diary, so she was aware of everything he had eaten that day.

Mum said, “I had never felt I could trust any nursery to look after Benjamin, but Little Sunflowers made Ben and I feel so safe and within weeks his speech had also improved, all this was down to the amazing setting, and as soon as my second son is old enough, he will attend there too due him also having PKU”.

The Neumark Foundation funding helps support Little Sunflowers in providing family support and guidance. Rebecca Neumark CEO said “We were delighted to hear about Benjamin’s journey and the impact his attendance at Little Sunflowers is having on his development and wellbeing. Providing families with specialist support is vital to early development to enable children such as Benjamin to achieve their full potential in a safe and caring environment”

For more information on PKU please see https://nspku.org/  and https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/phenylketonuria/