Purple Elephant Family Support is a small charity based in Frome which delivers support to families facing challenges in their lives and has an accessibility focus. Our services include running family activities during school holidays, which often appear in the CIAT Activities Calendar, and are accessible for SEND children. While the majority of the families we support live in or near Frome and are referred to us by other organisations, we welcome self-referrals to our holiday activities from any family in Somerset with additional needs or disabilities. Our activity sessions are usually 2 hours long, featuring different activities on different days from arts and crafts to sport to family cookery. We partner with Fair Frome to also offer a free meal to everyone who attends. 

We also run the annual Children’s Festival in Frome, which is open to everyone, accessible for SEND children and free to attend! Next year it will be held in July and further details will be on our website. We also run two early years services – Frome Toy Library and Small Steps – together providing different levels of support for families with preschool aged children, and both are SEND friendly. The Toy Library is open to all, and also lends out play sacks to members, and Small Steps is for referred families only (again SEND families can self refer). 

All our services are either free or very low cost to attend and are run by experienced, welcoming staff and volunteers. We’ve recently become a charity (previously a non-profit company) and are looking for new trustees – it would be great to have the SEND community represented on our board of trustees. We’re a small and friendly group of passionate people who want to support families in need and bring a bit of fun and joy to children’s lives. If you’d like more information head to our website – www.purpleelephant.org.uk – or contact founder Sue Willis on suewillis@purpleelephant.org.uk 

If you’d like to find similar activities and events near you, check Somerset’s SEND Local Offer.