About The Percy Hedley Foundation

Our Aims

With over 500 staff and a turnover of more than £13m, the Percy Hedley Foundation is one of the largest regional charities supporting disabled people. Our size enabled us to provide a wide range of services - to over 1000 families each year. But our paramount aim is to support people through specialist services that are of an outstanding quality, and we have a well established reputation for quality.

Underpinning all our work as a charity are four Strategic Principles, and services and activities are all designed to put these into practice. These are described in our Statement of Strategic Principles and, in short, are that we will provide high quality services, will innovate, evaluate our work, disseminate our knowledge.

Who we support

The Percy Hedley Foundation was established in 1953 as a small charitable school for children with cerebral palsy. Its purpose is to promote the rights, needs and aspirations of disabled people through specialist, quality services.

The Foundation now meets the needs of disabled people with cerebral palsy, communication impairments, sensory impairments and complex learning, social care and therapeutic needs.

Set up originally through the efforts of parents, we continue to support families both through specific services and as part of our support for a disabled person. Our roots are also with the medical profession as, in 1953, children with cerebral palsy were often seen as a medical problem. Today, working with a wider range of disabilities, we continue to value the input from medical professionals, and have over 50 therapists as an integral part of our staff teams.

What we do

We offer a wide range of children’s services and adult services as well as a Sports Academy. Children’s services include a Nursery, family support services, a school for parents, Percy Hedley Primary School, Percy Hedley Secondary Department, the Northern Counties School, and residential and respite care.

Adult services include residential services, adult day care services, Northern Counties College and employability projects, as well as Conductive Education for people with Parkinson's Disease.

The Sports Academy offers a very wide range of disability sports and its facilities are used not only by many local disabled groups but also for regional and national events.

To help raise the £13m needed the Foundation has its own Fundraising Department.

It also offers a developing range of training and consultancy both nationally and internationally.

A record of our recent achievements and finances is available in our Annual Reviews.