Equal Potential CIC

Final call (only 7 spaces left) to book onto our tree survey session tomorrow morning and keep the kids busy!

SEN Eco Club - Tree Surveys Look at leaves, seed and flowers to identify the tree species, and gather evidence by making sketches, bark & leaf rubbings.

Join us for our Farnborough bug hunting session on Monday morning! (Link in comments)

Looking for something to keep the kids busy this weekend? Sign up to our Grow Your Own session with Southwood Country Park!
(Booking Link in Comments)

Come and join us at Eco Club this summer! We are running a series of 2 hour forest school type family workshops in collaboration with Southwood Country park.

Our first session is a "Grow Your Own" workshop where the kids will be planting vegetables and other seeds to (hopefully) harvest later in the year.

Register on Eventbrite (limited places on a first come first served basis)

SEN Eco Club - Grow Your Own Build planters from old tyres, then sow vegetable seeds to - hopefully - harvest later

Tune in this weekend to hear us on Glow Radio!

This weekend on Grow with GLOW from 10:00 - 13:00 ⬇️

🎙️ This Sunday, we’re joined by Natalie Everard from Equal Potential to talk about supporting young people as they move from education into employment, including housing, finances and neurodiversity.

We also explore how young people are supported through mentoring, group sessions, volunteering and fundraising, and how Equal Potential works with businesses to become more neurodivergent-friendly.

How can you listen?

📻 Tune into 106.5FM, ask your smart speaker to “Launch GLOW RADIO”, or download the FREE GLOW RADIO App (available via the App Store and Google Play)

🎧Stream the full podcast on Spotify or Apple by searching: Grow with GLOW

💻 or visit https://loom.ly/gpXryww

🪩 Want to be interviewed on the show? Join the waitlist to be a guest at: https://loom.ly/yvmX1Xo

We don’t usually call out organisations directly—but Merlin Entertainments’ recent Ride Access Pass (RAP) changes are too significant (and frankly illegal) to ignore.

Merlin Entertainments’ decision to restrict RAP eligibility has left thousands of disabled visitors suddenly unable to access their parks. This week has seen an overwhelming surge of complaints across social media and customer channels as families realise their family members with invisible disabilities will no longer receive adjustments that made visits possible.

Meanwhile, several media outlets have unhelpfully misreported RAP as “queue jumping”, fuelling a wave of stigma, abuse and hate sent to disabled people online. RAP users were never skipping queues—they were queuing the same amount of time, just in a safer place.

The public narrative has also missed the reality: this isn’t about people “wanting to skip the queue”. It’s about people who cannot safely tolerate the physical queue environment. On a recent LEGOLAND trip with my autistic daughter, without a RAP, we spent five hours trying—and failing—to get on a single ride because our autistic daughter became overwhelmed and dysregulated every time we tried to queue. It was not a lack of patience. It was an inaccessible and unsafe.

Merlin claims too many people were using RAP, making it ineffective (it wasn't). But removing virtual queuing doesn’t shorten queues for anyone—it simply forces disabled guests into environments they are unsafe in, leading to more distress and disruption.

The timing is also impossible to ignore: RAP was restricted just as Merlin started advertising a paid alternative and their customer services are now asking those no longer eligible to pay for fast track passes instead. It really highlights the societal differentiation of view when disability is visible or invisible. Would Merlin have the same audacity to remove all step free access from the parks and claim they are only trialling have no wheelchair users in the park to see if it is more convenient without them?

It’s hard not to view this as a profit‑driven decision—especially when the very accessibility partner Merlin relies on, the Access Card, has publicly stated that those excluded were medically assessed as needing quieter entrances or virtual queues. The fallout hasn’t just damaged Merlin’s reputation. Brands associated with their attractions—like the LEGO Group —are now caught in the slipstream of negative publicity.

This situation shows exactly why inclusion cannot be an afterthought or a cost‑cutting exercise. When disabled people, families, and experts are not meaningfully involved, the result is harm, confusion, and the dismantling of previously inclusive spaces.

Meaningful inclusion isn’t about selling us headphones, directing to a sensory room, or forcing people to pay for their reasonable adjustments. It’s about dignity and safety.

Our SEN Stay & Play peer support sessions are back up and running next week (Fri 23rd) running 4-5pm at Southwood Country Park. Every Friday in term time.

Come and join us for some company and peer support.

Note - activities are aimed at primary aged children but any age welcome. Parents must stay while the child is in the field centre. No booking required.

Reminder for our SEN Stay & Play session running every Friday at Southwood Country Park. Please just drop in, no need to book!