Project Smile Play and Learn Service
Do you have a child with special needs aged 5 or above? You’ll be happy to hear about our Project Smile Play and Learn service.
This service offers children age- and ability-appropriate activities run by our skilled and knowledgeable Play Leaders, assisted by trained support workers and volunteers.
The service encourages children to achieve, acquire life-skills, and become empowered.
Sessions are held at our beautiful Children’s Centre at Heathlands Village and offers a high ratio of staff to the children in our care.
Our Play Leaders and their team have a wealth of experience in looking after and responding to the needs of children who have complex and challenging behavioural issues, due to conditions such as autism and ADHD.
Your child can come along and make friends while enjoying stimulating and fun activities, and you can be confident that they will receive the highest standard of care.
Our service is accessible to Jewish people across the religious spectrum. All activities are appropriate for any child, including those from a strictly observant Jewish home and all food provided is strictly kosher with an MH hechsher.
Project Smile Play and Learn offers your child:
- Twice weekly Play and Learn groups
- School Holiday Play-camps
If you would like your child to attend one or more of these activities, we will first arrange to assess if he or she is eligible. If you live in Salford, there will be no charge for your child to come along.
If you live outside of Salford, our Community Advice and Support Team (CAST) can advise about applying to your local council for funding. Families can also pay privately for this service.
Find our more about CAST
The Fed’s Children’s Centre
The Fed’s purpose-built Children’s Centre is an ideal, safe venue for your child. It is situated on the ground floor of Eventhall House, at Heathlands Village.
The centre is beautifully decorated with lovely murals and has a fantastic selection of toys, games and play equipment for children of any age and ability.
Your child will love all the different activity areas for arts and crafts, dressing-up, quiet reading, musical play and make-believe.
The Children’s Centre has a fully functioning kitchen for teaching life-skills and lots of outdoor play space – both grassed and tarmacked – for cycling, gardening, playing house, and wet play in the summertime.
On top of this we have a wonderful, multi-sensory room with a bubble tube, fibre optic lights, sensory wall, soft play and projection film. The technology is brilliant for improving physical skills, stimulating development or simply having fun. It’s also a great calming space if your child sometimes needs a little quiet time.
The centre also benefits from a wonderful outdoor space, with both hard and grassy areas, and the children spend as much time as possible enjoying the outdoors – which is so important for promoting their wellbeing.
We involve the children in all sorts of outdoor activities, whether learning to ride a bike, scooting, playing in the boat, or Wendy house or shop or getting stuck into gardening projects. They help plant sensory plants and grow vegetables which we they then get to eat at meal-times. They love playing in the sand-pit, and the mud kitchen is a firm favourite. These activities help foster a deeper connection with nature.
The centre truly has everything a child of any age could wish for or need to play, learn and be stimulated.
Mums ‘n’ Tots Group
Our lovely Children’s Centre is also home to The Fed’s popular Mums ‘n’ Tots Group. This is held on Wednesday mornings and is open to the whole community. Parents, grandparents, guardians and child-minders are all welcome to bring along their charges and the group is not limited to children with special needs. It’s a great place to being your 0 to 5 year old to meet other mums while the little ones have fun.
The sessions are run by The Fed staff who are assisted by volunteers. There are loads of different activities such as soft play, arts and crafts, dressing-up and healthy snacks for the children. Occasionally, we offer special sessions to promote perinatal mental wellbeing or link up with residents of Heathlands Village for intergenerational activities.
This group is also a helpful gateway to support from The Fed should it be needed.
Family Fun Day
Subject to available funding, we also hold annual day trips with coach transport for local families who are on a low income or have a child or children in need.
Centre Hire
Our children’s centre
- Can be hired out for your child’s birthday party
- Can be used as a venue for parents who are not living with their children, for supervised contact visits or handover for contact.
