Creative help for Hope House School - November 2007

Enterprise & Innovation

Business Champions Building Hope 

Business Champions Ann Crockett-Mclean and Chris King have over the last 15 months been supporting the work of Terri Westmoreland in her development of Hope House School. Hope House is a school committed to transforming the lives of children with Autistic Spectrum Disorders by providing one-to-one tutoring in individual classrooms.

“I have five amazing grand children but two of them have a rare genetic disorder which is on the autistic spectrum” commented Terri. “Their schooling so far has been absolutely dreadful and it was about four or five years ago that I decided that if we couldn’t get the correct schooling for them we would have to open a school of our own”

Following months of research and with premises sought Terri realised the scale of the task ahead and approached Champions for support. Initially she was seeking assistance with a business plan, legal matters and property renovation, but after meeting Champion Chris King she realised there were other issues that needed addressing.

“Chris King, the head master of Leicester grammar school was amazing at the start, telling me the sort of people I would need to contact to get Hope House off the ground” said Terri, “and it was Chris that prompted my search for a marketing mentor, which in turn led me to Ann Crockett-Mclean”.

Ann has worked closely with Terri for some time now, providing marketing advice, identifying which target groups Terri needed to reach, and assisting with the development of the website and prospectus.

“One of the greatest challenges I’ve faced working with Hope house school is that there’s no budget – well very little budget to talk about” commented Ann. “As a marketer that’s given me some really good challenges - to try to be creative and understand the main priorities”.

Through passionate fund-raising efforts and professional support Terri is now realising her desire to provide a unique school in Newark, Nottinghamshire, which will transform the lives of up to forty educationally fragile children. She has completed development on one of many buildings on site and is working closely with local authorities to enroll children keen to benefit from Hope House School.

“Terri is unswerving in her determination to make Hope House School a reality” said Ann. “It feels massively rewarding to be on the receiving end of that and to be part of that journey is a great reward in itself”