“The idea is to try to help Penny achieve those motor skills, so things like rolling, sitting up, crawling and now we’ve progressed to practicing walking with her,” said Jayne Wilson, Penny’s physiotherapist.
“This is mostly done with a set of parallel bars that she uses in the clinic, and she is such a motivated child and a delight to work with.
“She had been making great progress and one day Penny’s mum and I were chatting after one of her sessions and talked about how it would be great if she had something like the parallel bars at home so she could practice with it daily.”
The next week, when Claire was at work in St Patrick’s College in Dungannon, she recounted this conversation to some of her colleagues, and an idea was sparked among some of the school’s staff.
It culminated in a small group of staff and pupils within the school’s technology and art departments combining their skills to design and construct a bespoke walking stand and parallel bars for Penny to use at home.
Claire said she was completely overwhelmed when they presented her with the piece of personalised equipment.
