Welcome to Skylarks
Hello
Thank you for registering with us on our website. We look forward to welcoming you to Skylarks and hope to be able to support you and your family.
You can see a full presentation on everything we offer here.
Our face-to-face sessions at the Crossway Centre in Twickenham take place on Tuesday afternoons and some Friday mornings during term time with a variety of activities available. We also have a range of holiday activities. Our online services will also continue for both adults and children. You can find more information about all these services and book into them via our website.
Here's some information about what we do:
Skylarks is an independent charity based in Richmond Upon Thames, committed to enabling every child and young person with additional needs to live their best life while supporting everyone whose lives they touch.
Founded in 2006 by a group of parent volunteers, we believe every child and young person deserves to have equal opportunities and a place where they belong. We provide a safe space where those with additional needs can come and just enjoy being themselves and we strive to remove the isolation that can happen for those children and their families.
Previously known as Me too & Co and rebranded as Skylarks in 2019, we provide support and information for parents and carers of children with any additional needs and/or disabilities, as well as providing play and therapy sessions for the children and their siblings. We offer support and a wide range of workshops, therapies and training.
We offer a range of services free of charge to families free of charge, both in term time and in the holidays. There are no geographical or borough limits on where our families live. Children do not need an EHC Plan or even a formal diagnosis to access our services and families do not need to be referred by a professional. Anyone from anywhere, at any stage of their journey, is welcome. We welcome families who have children and young people aged 0-25 and are currently working on increasing our provision for young people aged 14 and above.
Full details of all our activities and services are in our e-newsletters, which you will start receiving when you register with us.
For those who live at a distance or for whom travelling is difficult: We offer more of our services online, such as coding courses, webinars, Spread Your Wings etc, so please keep an eye on our newsletters for items that could be of interest to you. We will continue to offer a wide variety of online services. We also signpost webinars and other online events from other organisations on our closed Facebook group, so please do follow us on social media.
During the pandemic we made videos for many of our services, such as yoga, music, art, story time, haircutting, cookery and karate for children; and self-care, relaxation and yoga videos for parents. These are all on our website and you can view them at any time by logging in.
We are available on the end of the phone, by Zoom, on social media, in our closed Facebook group and by email, offering support, advice and information. You can see everything that we are currently offering here:
You might like to join our closed Facebook group at:
Here are some more details on our charity and what we offer:
We run activity sessions from 230 to 530 on Tuesdays and from 930 to 12 on some Fridays in term time at our centre in Twickenham. At these sessions we provide a wide range of services, therapies and activities, both for the children who have additional needs, for their siblings and for their parents. You can book all of our activities in advance via our website. We always have a play room with a wide range of toys for children of different ages and we provide tea, coffee and a listening ear to parents.
We also offer regular activities at other times away from our usual venue, which are all publicised in our email newsletter. These include pop-up play sessions and advice clinics in Barnes, Hampton and Hounslow and holiday activities in a wide range of locations such as horse riding in Bushy Park, nature days in Richmond Park and visits to Hampton Court Palace.
We send a weekly newsletter to show what is happening at Skylarks in the next week, so when you register with us, you will start to receive these regularly, usually on a Satuday morning in term time. We also signpost “Local Information” about all support and services we know about which are available locally. More information is also available on our website: www.skylarks.charity Please do also “like” us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/SkylarksCharity/
We usually offer the following services:
- Play sessions
- Music therapy (Otakar Kraus Music Trust)
- Sing and sign (Makaton)
- Sensory art
- Sensory room
- Karate workshop
- Drama workshop
- Developmental yoga for children - F2F or online
- SEND education advice and help with EHCP’s
- Osteopathy clinic
- Family Matters advice clinics with RUILS
- Parenting courses with Welcare
- Haircuts for children
- Cookery sessions
- Pedal Project – learn to cycle
- Home education/Not in school support group
- Phyz support group
- Girls Connect for parents of girls with autism
- Post 16 Maze support group with RUILS
- Counselling with Off the Record for young people with additional needs
- Pop up play sessions in Barnes and Hampton
- Online fun activities for children such as music and drama
- Training for parents
- Horse riding with Park Lane Stables
- Online life skills courses for children in resilience, leadership and creative problem solving
- Holiday activities such as visits to Kew Gardens, Chiswick House, Hampton Court or Holly Lodge in Richmond Park
- Online yoga and relaxation sessions
- Interactive drama and plays with Magical Quests
- Holiday sports clubs with RISE
- All Aboard Club - special interest train sessions
- Spread Your Wings careers coaching for young people
- Online coding courses with Jet Learn
- Money Matters courses for young people
- New venue opening in Hounslow in June 2025
You can book most of our services online. Some of these can book up quickly but please don’t despair if you don’t get a place on one of our popular offerings – if they are well received, we will always run them again. We also always set up waiting lists, so please put your name on the relevant waiting lists and we will contact you if a space becomes available (there are often cancellations due to family circumstances).
Donations welcome
Most of our services are free for parents. There is a suggested voluntary donation of £3 to attend one of our play sessions. We suggest donations for all of our other activities such as £6 for haircutting, £10 for a yoga class, a magical adventure or a webinar or around £30 - £40 for a course such as life skills or Pedal Project. Donations can be made by contactless card reader at our sessions or online at https://cafdonate.cafonline.org/15063 We do not want anyone to ever feel they cannot access our services, so bursary places on these courses are available for those in need. We receive grants and funding which allows us to keep our activities at low cost for our families.
We are an independent charity and do not apply for statutory funding, such as government or local authority funding. This means we are completely independent and can support families fully.
We receive funding from Haymarket Media Group, Richmond Foundation, Hampton Funds, Barnes Fund and many local fairs, schools/PTA’s, local companies and events. We have been the chosen charity of the Mayor of Richmond, the Richmond May Fair Ball and have been awarded the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service, along with being supported by Global’s Make Some Noise, where we have appeared on Capital FM, Heart and LBC. We were shortlisted for the BAPS Awards, won our category in the National Diversity Awards in 2021, were shortlisted finalists for the Children and Young People’s awards 2022, the Learning Disability Awards 2024 and the International Diversity Awards 2024 and have recently been named as a finalist in two Diversity Awards 2025.
For parents and carers
We can also provide information on lots of the things that you need to know about as a parent of a child with additional needs and if we don’t offer advice on it ourselves, we can put you in touch with someone who can. We want to make sure all parents know about and are aware of their rights and how to get their child’s needs met, such as:
- Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCP’s)
- Disability Living Allowance (DLA)
- Personal Independence Payments (PIP)
- Carers Allowance
- Social Care Assessments
- Parent Carer Needs Assessments
- Mental health support
- Local Offer websites
- Other support organisations
We will be pleased to welcome you, with or without your children, at any of our sessions on either Tuesday afternoons or Friday mornings during term time.
Here are our Member Guidelines which we would ask you to read before you come to our sessions for the first time. Please also read our online safeguarding procedures.
Here is how to find us:
You can find us at our main venue which is: The Crossway Centre, Richmond Road, Twickenham TW1 2PD. The Crossway Centre is a modern building just behind St Stephens Church, very near Marble Hill Park, on the road that goes from Richmond to Twickenham.
There is a pay and display car park at Marble Hill Park (currently £2.50 for up to 2 hours and £3.50 for up to 3 hours or free for English Heritage members and Blue Badge holders). It is usually open till dusk. The postcode for the car park is TW1 2NL. You can park on some nearby streets using pay-by-phone and it is free after 4.30pm or with a Blue Badge on single yellow lines at any time. We regret we cannot offer parking on site.
Bus numbers 33, 490, R70 and R68 stop just outside the church at the stop called St Stephens Church. The bus numbers H37 and 110 stop just round the corner from the Crossway Centre at a stop called Poplar Court.
Please do keep in touch and we look forward to meeting you either online or in real life soon.
Best wishes
Fiona Morgan