This week we welcomed Abbie from Derian House Children's Hospice to come and talk to our families about the work of a children's hospice and how it could support our families when needed. Abbie soon became popular with our children getting lots of smiles. Our theme of the week was doctors and nurses and we welcomed four new families to the session who had fun bandaging up the dolls and putting them to bed. some of our children just wanted to relax on Nessie where our staff a

Today we welcomed a new family to our stay and play session, although a little apprehensive mum managed to enjoy a brew and chat with other families and our professional visitor Neuro Disability Nurse Grace. I think it's safe to say both mum and child left feeling very relaxed and asked when they could come again. Todays session was all about music and sounds made by various musical instruments, a very popular but noisy session. Aidan and Jannah also paid us a quick visit whi

This week is half term, so we welcomed more families to this morning’s session, 5 in total. It was great to see siblings joining the session too! Our new facilities were very much appreciated, our accessible, specialist equipment really opens the door to inclusion! Today, we welcomed both familiar and new families, we look forward to creating a Jolly Josh community in time. At present (until July) our Stay and Play sessions are only open on Tuesday mornings between 10am and

Today at our Jolly Josh #stayandplay session we celebrated #nationalchildrensday with the moto #choosekind We welcomed a new friend and explored sensory foam with our hands and feet! We had a lovely time playing and stretching on the mats too. We were joined by this week’s visiting professional, Alex. Alex is a Health Visitor and also a Jolly Josh Trustee, thank you so much for a lovely morning! We are looking forward to welcoming more of our Jolly Josh friends next week.

This week to raise awareness of #mentalhealthawarenessweek we welcomed MIND Rochdale and District to the session. This year's theme is 'loneliness' and as part of the #JollyJosh moto we aim to enable families to connect with both their peers and supportive professionals, in order to help them to thrive. Today, for our second session at our new centre, we welcomed 2 families. It was great to see both children enjoy the new #magiccarpet equipment, as you can see they became sub

What a lovely first session in our very own ‘place to call home!' Today we welcomed 2 families to our Stay and Play session at the new centre, it was so lovely to see the children and families comfortable and at ease, especially as we had so many volunteers this week. This week is Deaf awareness week. We were honoured to be joined by Lorenza from Eliza Says. Eliza was one our very first Jolly Josh friends when we started our Stay and Play sessions back in 2017! Eliza’s mum, L

We had lots of wintery fun at this weeks #stayandplay session @JollyJosh #Rochdale where we had a polar explorer themed morning. Our little ones explored our sensory toys in their very own igloo as well as discovering what animals live in the wintery tuff tray. As you can see from our photographs, our little ones and their families enjoyed building their own ice towers and reading stories. This week we were joined by two professionals; Sarah from @RainbowScent and Sally, a #C

Lots of fun was had at this week’s #stayandplay session @JollyJosh #Rochdale where we explored all things transport. We had lots of fun playing with cars, planes, trains buses and more! Our little ones and their families enjoyed reading stories about transport and played with the busy street mat where the cars and trains travelled around town, taking people home, to work and school. Unfortunately, our visiting professional this week was unable to attend but please join us nex

What a fantastic time we had a this weeks #stayandplay session @JollyJosh #Rochdale. We played in the 'snow' and built 'ice' block towers and explored the texture of 'snowballs' without the cold! Our visiting professional this week was Lisa, a #PaediatricPhysiotherapistTeamLead who had lots of fun with our little ones. Lisa has been working closely with some of our tots and their families. As you can see from our photographs, Lisa encouraged one of our little ones to kneel u

We certainly had a fun start to the new year at this weeks #StayandPlay session @JollyJosh #Rochdale, for our trains themed session. As you can see from our photographs, our little ones really enjoyed playing train drivers and exploring the track, trains and practising being conductors! We had three visiting professionals this week; all offering different support and advice to our parents and little ones. Firstly, thanks you to Sarah from @RainbowScent. Sarah is joining us fo

We certainly enjoy a party @JollyJosh and especially a Christmas party! Our little ones had festive fun at this weeks #StayandPlay session @JollyJosh #Rochdale for our Christmas party. As you can see from our photographs, we were in full festive swing; enjoying printing with paints and stamps as well as exploring the textures of tinsel, pinecones and 'snow'. We were joined by two professionals this week who were on hand to support and advice to our parents on a range of area

We had lots of fun at our elves and fairies themed #stayandplay session @JollyJosh #Rochdale this week. We explored all things elf and fairy like, which our little ones loved. They enjoyed exploring the texture of Astroturf, tinsel, log slices and pinecones and as you can see from the photographs, they enjoyed dressing up too! Thank you to our amazing little ones and their families who visit and make our sessions so fun and exciting. Please join us next week on Thursday the 1

We had a fairly quiet #StayandPlay session @JollyJosh #Rochdale this week with many of our regular little ones and their parents poorly with seasonal bugs; wish you all a speedy recovery and hope you get well soon. Those that could join us had fun exploring the owl babies themed activities with the textures of sawdust and tree stumps having lots of messy fun along the way. Our visiting professional this week was Joanna, a #PaediatricPhysiotherapist who got hands on this week

We had a great time at this weeks #StayandPlay session @JollyJosh #Rochdale with our Toy Story themed session (a slight swap of our timetabled theme of Owl Babies). Our little ones enjoyed playing with the characters in the sand as well as building Mr & Mrs Potato Head! Our visiting professionals this week were Alex, a #HealthVisitor and her colleague Aly #StudentHealthVisitor who were on hand to offer some great advice and support to our parents and families; thank you as al

We had plenty of fun for this weeks safari themed #StayandPlay session @JollyJosh in #Rochdale. Our little adventurers and their families discovered a range of safari animals in the grasslands (hay) and had lots of creative fun making their own giraffe to take home. Please see our photographs. We would like to thank our visiting professionals this week, Anna a #ChildrensComplexCareandPalliativeSpecialistNurse who had lots of fun playing with our little ones while supporting o

We had an excellent #stayandplay @JollyJosh #Rochdale this week where we raised awareness of #WorldPrematurityDay with our baby clinic themed activities. Our little ones had great fun bathing and feeding the 'babies' as well as checking their temperatures and bandaging their sore legs and arms. Our mini Doctors and Nurses listened to the babies breathing with stethoscopes and gave injections to babies that needed them! We would like to thank Danielle, a volunteer from @Spoons

What a fun session we had at this weeks Armistice themed #stayandplay session @JollyJosh #Rochdale. Our little ones enjoyed using gardening tools to 'plant' poppies in our tuff tray and explored the texture of soil. Some of our little ones got creative and printed poppy shapes using tubes and paint to make a poppy pattern before sticking buttons in the middle. We printed both red poppies - to remember the Armed Forces lost in war, and purple poppies - to remember the animals

Just two years after the launch of Jolly Josh’s first ever session, our families were today invited to a ‘Mystery Meet’, alongside the Mayor and Mayoress of #Rochdale to be present for our much awaited announcement. We were incredibly excited to publicise that we now have the keys to our own venue! This venture was first discussed in September after celebrating our 2nd Year Anniversary and has moved forward swiftly. The long term goals which we once only dreamed of achieving

Well this weeks #stayandplay session @JollyJosh #Rochdale seemed to be a big hit with our little ones and tots as we explored all things Halloween. Our little ones experienced sensory play in dried lentils and had fun scooping them into the witches cauldrons, making potions and spells. We looked at Halloween books and read spooky stories before making sparkling rocket fireworks to zoom into the night sky for bonfire night. Our visiting professional this week was Alex, a #Heal

At this weeks #stayandplay session @JollyJosh #Rochdale we enjoyed lots of sensory play all about space. Our little ones enjoyed playing with our space themed resources and exploring moon sand as well as creating their own space print pictures. We looked at books and read stories about space too. Thank you to our little ones and their families for joining us this week, as ever you help make our sessions so much fun! Together we #ConnectSupportThrive. Please join us after half