b'As Mum to three children, I just want my kids to be the besttheycanbe.Basically I want them to have fun, to learnandtomakefriends. But for my son Rory who has anintellectualdisability, thisprovedquiteachal-lengeparticularlyduring school holidays.There was no one knocking on our door asking him to come out and play. He had never been asked on a playdate. Instead of wondering which summer camp he should go to, my difficulty was simply finding a camp that could cater to his needs. This led to very long empty summer holidays for a child like Rory, not to mention us as his parents. So along with my friend Orla Crowe whose son Max has Down Syndrome, we decided to set up Blossom Ireland in 2010 to bridge the gap between the available publicservices and the actual needs of families like ours. We wanted our boys to have the same opportunities as our other kids. We wanted them to go to a camp, to make friends but above all to have fun just like every other child. Because they deserved nothing less. SoourfirstsummercampwasheldinAugust2011 and we had 22 children with special needs between theages of 812. We now run Blossom Ireland Discovery Camps throughout the year and have over 45 children reg-istered with us. Our camps are about providing just enoughsupports in the right environment to enable children with an intellectual disability to engage in activities to the best of their ability. As the children grow, we try to grow with them. Wecurrently have children up to the age of 16. We are very conscious of the fact that it wouldnt be appropriate for a 16 year old to be participating in the same programme as an 8 year old so this has led us to develop a new service called Blossom Buddies. thanks to a grant fromIfourBlossomteenswanttogotothecinemaorvisitthelocalcoffeeshoptheygenerallyneedsupport to do this. Typically this support comes in the form of aparent or sibling which means that either the young personThe Ireland Funds, wenevergetstoexperienceanactivityormakeafriendindependently, or they simply dont attend the activity. Our aim is to support them to undertake the activities that were able to recently launchother children access easily.CurrentlyweoperateonlyinDublinbutweplanover the coming years to expand our services throughout Blossom Buddies whichIreland.WeseeourBlossomDiscoveryCampsalmostas the incubator phase where we give the children confi-dence by providing an environment that is paced just right enables teenagers to developto allow them to succeed. It encourages friendships and helps build self-esteem. The Blossom Buddies Program is very much about building on that confidence and enabling our young people with intellectual disabilities to become independent life skills. active and valued members of their local communities. connect2015 | 25'