CBA Community Fund Helps WA Children With Disabilities

SPONSORED: A CommBank Staff Community Fund grant has made a big difference to a group of children with disabilities in Western Australia.

A six-year-old girl from the Rocky Bay School Age Therapy School in Western Australia is now able to communicate with her teachers and family using a program on her iPad, funded by a grant from the CommBank.

Rocky Bay received a $8,506 grant from CommBank’s Staff Community Fund in 2011. They used the money to buy iPads and iPods loaded with Proloquo2Go, a software package specifically designed for people who have difficulty speaking or cannot speak at all.

Six-year-old student, Kylie*, trialled the iPad 2 with Proloquo2Go and her mother Irene found that she was able to better communicate using the device.

“Kylie was sick last week, but was able to convey to me via the iPad that her tummy hurt and she felt like vomiting. She was quite distressed but the iPad helped calm her. Normally she pretends to sneeze a lot if she feels unwell but the iPad gave me a better idea of what was wrong,” Irene said.

Rocky Bay is a leading disability service provider offering support to over 1000 children and 500 adults living with disabilities in the Perth metropolitan area. Their services for individuals and their families include accommodation, respite, employment and therapy.

Rocky Bay Marketing Manager Simon Page said that the grant from the CommBank has made an impact to the school’s students.

“The CommBank Staff Community Fund grant has made a huge difference to our school-aged clients, particularly those with Autism and Down Syndrome. While you certainly don’t have to bank with CommBank to apply for a grant, we were made aware of the opportunity by our Relationship Manager,” he said.

“Keeping the lines of communication open with CommBank has meant that they’ve been able to help us improve our cash flow, so we can continue to provide services to the families and children that need them. Lately, we’ve been increasing the sophistication of our fundraising capability and CommBank’s transactional banking and eCommerce solutions will help underpin this.”

Rocky Bay is a leading disability service provider offering support to over 1000 children and 500 adults living with disabilities in the Perth metropolitan area. Their services for individuals and their families include accommodation, respite, employment and therapy.

*Client names have been changed for confidentiality.