CHRISTMAS SHOP
the most important gift you’ll give this year
This year your gifts could make someone’s day and provide vital support for children and adults with physical and learning disabilities, and their families.
How it works:
Browse the online catalogue below
Choose items to buy as gifts and add to your cart
We will post you a gift card for each item purchased, each with an insert explaining the gift
Write your message in the card, and gift to your intended recipient
Your donation will support Diverse Abilities’ vital work - providing real life support to someone who needs it
Feel festive and warm inside - you’ve done a great thing!
A special childhood
Children with disabilities should be able to access the same childhood activities and experience that other children their age enjoy.
You could give the gift of childhood.
Diverse Abilities provides 24-hour respite care for children with incredibly profound disabilities, a lifeline for Mum and Dad to give them rest and a vital night's sleep.
By buying this gift you will help make sure children with profound disabilities have the opportunity to feel special with all the sensory play and pampering they deserve at their sleepover.
Children love to play games, but for children with profound disabilities this is taken away.
Buying this gift will deliver a sensory sport session, giving an incredible child a chance to play sport, and receive all the benefits that comes with it. This gift will enable their parents to see their child engage a sport such as football or tennis, something they never envisioned happening.
Siblings of children with disabilities can feel very isolated, due to their caring responsibilities, the anxieties of having a poorly sibling and facing difficulties that their peers do not have to face.
Our STARS siblings group supports siblings through these difficulties, helping them process their challenges, form friendships and develop the skills they need to cope.
Buying this gift, you will be giving an incredible sibling the support that they need.
Lifelong support
Once people with disabilities turn 18 much of the support they have been able to access simply stops, many families describe it as falling off a cliff edge. Your Christmas gift could fund Diverse Abilities’ provision of therapy and activities for adults with disabilities, part of the charity’s aim to provide a lifetime of support.
The physical and emotional benefits of exercise are well known, but very hard for people with physical and learning disabilities to access.
Buying this gift will bring health to someone with profound disabilities in a fun and upbeat way that is truly enriching.
Nearly half of adults with a learning disability experience mental health problems in their life (source NICE). One of the approaches used by Diverse Abilities to tackle this heartbreaking problem is providing meaningful time outdoors.
Buying this gift will give someone a day in nature, engaged in gardening raised beds in a beautiful kitchen garden in rural Dorset. The satisfaction and joy gained through this gift will not only bring emotional wellbeing but also through digging, lifting and handling tools important physical benefits too.
Cooking is not only a life skill, but a joy. For people who cannot ordinarily access kitchens, Diverse Abilities operates a specially built adaptive kitchen, where every surface can be adjusted to fit any height wheelchair.
By buying this gift, you will provide someone a cookery and nutrition session in this specialist kitchen, for an adult with physical and learning disabilities to enjoy cooking and to develop skills. Maybe they’ll even cook a Christmas meal for their family one day.
Christmas wishes
Christmas is such a special time, but the pressures and cost can mean enjoying traditions and making family memories can feel impossible for families who must also provide care for someone with profound physical and learning disabilities.
Diverse Abilities works hard at Christmas to deliver fun and memories for these incredibly families.
Taking a child to visit Santa is a magical experience. But for children with severe learning disabilities and neurodiversity it can be overwhelming.
By buying this gift you can give a child a Santa visit to remember. Hosted in a setting they know, with a dedicated time slot, no queues or noises and special elves who know each child, the experience will be magical. The child will receive a gift specially chosen for them, and the family will have a photo to treasure.
Ice skating is a magical childhood experience.
Buying this gift will enable a child with physical and learning disabilities to experience the wonder of the ice, with a dedicated support worker helping them whether they are on ice skates or on the ice in a wheelchair. This gift not only gives the child an amazing festive experience, but also respite for their family – especially valuable in the busy lead-up to Christmas.
Exciting days out in the lead up to Christmas and the building excitement form such special Christmas memories for families.
This gift will fund a special Christmas Eve for a family at a fun farm park. Privately hired by the charity and staffed by a team of dedicated and fun support workers, this gives families a day out free from worries, supported to enjoy festive activities together.
Your gift will make sure an adult with disabilities isn’t lonely this Christmas.
This donation will ensure that they have a support worker with them throughout Christmas Day, and overnight too, keeping them safe and making sure their Christmas is a special as they deserve.
This gift will provide a meal and gift for an adult with disabilities this Christmas. They are unable to go out to restaurants or hotels for Christmas celebrations due to the lack of facilities for their complex needs, and to do so alongside their friends who also have profound disabilities is impossible.
By buying this gift you will provide a special Christmas meal for someone with physical and learning disabilities, surrounded by friends, catering to their exact needs, plus a little present too.
Attending the Panto is expensive and difficult for adults supported by Diverse Abilities, with special transport arrangements and carer costs.
Through buying this gift you will put a huge smile on the face of someone with physical and learning disabilities, as the gift will cover the costs involved in making a Pantomime accessible. It’s behind you!
Your donation will be used to provide vital care through directly funding Diverse Abilities’ work.