 On the on 4th of May, Scottish Wooden Spoon helped open a new play area at Seamab ( as seen above), a small residential primary school offering a therapeutic and nurturing environment for emotionally fragile children with severe social, emotional and/or behavioural difficulties for fifty-two weeks of the year. The School recently relocated to “The Hollies” which provides a more secure environment for the children without “locking them in” and Wooden Spoon funded the provision of a new all-weather external play area with a £38,600 contribution. Peter Brown led the opening ceremony on behalf of Wooden Spoon and was soon to be found between the posts emulating the goalkeeping skills of his late father “Jock Brown” who kept goal for Clyde’s cup winning side in 1938/39 as well as for Scotland.
 Just over a week later, the region opened the Tayavalla Family Support service on May 10th. The service provides respite care and support for around 35 families of disabled children in the Falkirk, Stirling and Clackmannanshire area. The extension will allow the project to offer a range of new services including a multi-sensory facility that will provide a calming environment for children when they need it. Wooden Spoon, gave the single largest donation of £45,000 towards the £70,000 total cost. The Honorary President of its Scottish committee, Peter Brown, who played rugby for Scotland from 1964-1973 performed the official opening ceremony, along with one of the young people who use the service.
 The Tayavalla service was established in 1995 as a result of a campaign by local paediatricians and families for better support services for children with disabilities. Since then, it has helped hundreds of families. As the project’s work has developed, it has been helping children with ever greater levels of dependency and more complex needs. The extension will allow it to respond to these changing demands and continue to provide first class care and support. The extension includes a multi-sensory room, known as a snoozelen, which provides sensory stimulation and encourages children with profound learning disabilities and/or sensory impairments to interact with their environments. It offers new ways to encourage awareness, exploration and learning, and to help young people have some control over their environment.
.jpg) The work of Tayavalla has been praised by young people who use the service and their parents and carers, as well as more independent visitors such as the Care Commission. Families can cope better at home when they know they will have time to recharge their batteries during the regular respite breaks. Andrew Girvan, Director of Children’s Services for NCH Scotland said: “This magnificent new extension will make a real difference to children with disabilities and their families in the Falkirk area. We are indebted to all the organisations which worked so hard to raise the money to provide these new services. They should be very proud of what they have achieved.”
 Peter Brown said: “ Wooden Spoon's raison d'etre is to put the fun into fundraising and then commit the monies raised in support of a whole range of projects designed to improve life for disadvantaged children and young people throughout the UK and Ireland. We are particularly active here in Scotland having provided well over £1 million's worth of support to projects such as Tayavalla. The new extension was a perfect fit with our criteria and we found no difficulty in supporting such a creditable and worthwhile cause."
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