The founders of a special educational needs company that works to help families with children that have severe learning difficulties are uprooting from Ashford to make Ramsgate their permanent home.
Michelle Elliot and Kurt King launched Differences Not Disabilities two years ago after leaving their jobs at a learning difficulties school.
The duo say they both loved their jobs but could see that parents and carers were struggling after school hours and decided to set up a way to help.
The pair offer training courses for parents/carers with children who have complex needs and challenging behaviour. They also provide one-to-one counselling for families and are in the process of gaining their accreditation from the British Institute of Learning Disabilities.
The pair, who have won awards for their community support, also attend markets across the county selling sensory and fidget goods. They have had a stall at the Ramsgate Friday market for two years and say part of being there is also to talk to people, offer advice and signpost them to the help they may need.
Now they are on a mission to raise funds to take over the former Coomes betting shop in the High Street to provide services in Thanet.
Michelle,42, said: “We are planning a big disabled toilet with hoist, adult changing bed, stoma friendly area and shower. This is one of the most important things.
“In the shop we will have a community table for tea and chats and maybe run little groups for crafts and things. We’ve found a lot of people we talk to on Fridays have no-one else to talk to all week and so this is about bringing people together.
“We will have a shop area for all our sensory items, 3d printed toys, education resources, hoodies, t shirts and more.
“We are here to give people advice of they are struggling. We work with SEN families but have also found ourselves helping those with mental health issue, suicidal thoughts and self harm.
“We want to be here for everyone. From November to February we were providing hot meals from our stall for homeless people and giving out sanitary and toiletry products and we hope with the shop that we could maybe provide them somewhere to shower and wash their clothes.
“We’ll be running our classes, training and courses and will have a private consultation area.
“The aim is to be a safe space for everyone who wants to come in.”
Michelle says the shop owner has been incredibly helpful and the pair now hope to raise enough funds to kit out the property and get it up and running.
To find the Differences not Disabilities fundraiser click here
Find out more about the company at: https://differencesnotdisabilities.co.uk/
They are lovely people – it’s great that they’ve had a chance to get to know the town through their regular market stall. My only concern for them is that they’re trying to be everything to everyone in a town that has many deep-rooted social issues. There already social inclusion and mental health initiatives in the town, as well as support for homeless people through the salvation army and the street homeless team. It’s lovely that they want to help so much but I hope they don’t over-stretch and exhaust themselves. Stick to your area of expertise, get up and running with the disability and neurodiversity support and then branch out to all those other areas if you find yourself with time, energy and resources on your hands. Good luck and wishing you all the best for this very worthwhile cause.
I’ve not come across them but I have a child with complex needs and agree that if they can really concentrate on that as other groups locally support other issues but not so much families with disabled children.
They sound lovely
Hey, Michelle here from Differences Not Disabilities. We specialise in complex needs, challenging behaviours and all SEN but also help the community who need it in anyway we can when we can around our main focus. Dont worry SEN is our roots and we will never loose sight of that. If you are able to please pop down to the market on a friday. Id love to go through what we do. We are always here for you and your family too if you need us.
Hi Liz, Michelle here from Differences Not Disabilities. Thanks you for commenting. SEN will always be our main focus but is very difficult to add all what we are doing in that field in one article. In regards to the homeless, the Salvation Army do an amazing job but they too cannot provide the help all the time so we like to help around them. Although we have lots of projects on the go we do work 7 days a week and have done for the past 2 years but we absolutely love our job and so excited for whats to come. Thank you for supporting us. The community have been incredible and we look forward to a future in Ramsgate
Is this free for a family ?
Hi all! Michelle here!!! Please dont worry, our main focus will always be challenging behaviour, complex needs and SEN. We left our jobs to do this and have the biggest passion for it. We just want to help the community in other ways too around what we do. We appreciate all the love and support we have recieved and cant thank you enough. Please feel free to pop down to the market to chat on fridays