Our annual Let Me Shine music festival made a return on Monday, 4 May with young people and their families, staff members and their families, and previous young people who attended Prior’s Court and their families all invited to enjoy the day.

As the autistic young people with complex needs we support are unlikely to ever be able to attend a music festival, this annual event empowers them to access such an experience on their terms.

These are some of the approaches we take to support this:

On-the-day communication book

Every young person was supplied with a special one-off communication book for the day. This featured a core board on one side and a page of images for each activity taking place at the festival. The images were an exact match to the activity to ensure consistency. Large, A3-size printouts of these symbols were then attached to stakes, which were placed in the ground at each activity location.

This allowed young people to meaningfully make informed choices about what activity they wished to participate in.

Read more about the entire event

Supplier support

Our choice of supplier helps ensure the event is suitable for young people. For example, Up In Smoke BBQs asked to be able to display a core board which also displayed choices of meals, condiments and cutlery.

Elsewhere, Butterfly Community Cafe CIC works to support young people with learning difficulties to gain experience of the world of work so therefore they share our values.

While Reading FC's Community Trust work extensively with young people like those at Prior's Court and, with its staff members also being trained in the TeamTeach approach, they are ideally placed to be support our young people in taking part in the activity the trust supplied.

Sensory tent

Our on-site Therapies team looked after a sensory tent at the festival. This tent was located as far away as possible from the music stage to ensure the sound did not travel as the purpose of the sensory tent was to provide an area in which young people could get the sensory input they needed to calm, regualte and play in a peaceful environment.

The sensory tent featured:

• Bean bags
• Tickle tents
• Weighted blankets (to calm and regulate)
• Water play of the tent
• Minitrampolines
• Gym balls
• Tunnels (for crawling)
• Plastic balance beams
• Large mixing trays for sensory play
• Sensory story offered in the tent
• Set of oils + towels for massage and story massage
• Deep pressure brushes and booklets
• Bubbles
• Blocks
• Some wow/tactile books
• Fishing game