PLPS West Ham Transcript

[Charlie's Mum]: Charlie loves West Ham, he wants to play for West Ham one day. He sleeps with footballs. Everything is football. Football mad. He's got Autism, he's got ADHD, he's got ODD. His old school just couldn't deal with children like Charlie, so they sort of gave up on him. He stopped eating, he didn't sleep, he didn't want to go anywhere, he didn't want to go to school. He was upset all the time. Charlie's at his new school now and they had to sort of unpick him, bit by bit, and sort of bring him out of his shell again and made him feel loved again.

[Adam, West Ham Coach]: My aim was to get Charlie involved in the sessions within school time. That was through communication with him, having chats with him on the sides, being personal with him.

[Charlie's Mum]: At the start, he wouldn't go into PE, he didn't want to join in at all. He just used to wander about and gradually, Adam the West Ham coach, got him involved, and was like 'you can do this'.

[Adam]: Come on Charlie, quick feet, good man. Well done! I use the power of West Ham United and his support for the club, to get him to be able to trust me, to trust the players he works with and I think that worked very well, and eventually what we were able to see was that Charlie did participate in school time, and there was ambitions for him to participate in extra curricular activities as well. Cone!

[Charlie's Mum]: He's been really great with Charlie. He's built that relationship up with him, now he loves him.

[Adam]: It's been a joy to watch him grow in this environment. Charlie is more confident, he's more communicative with his peers and staff and I think that's fantastic.

[Charlie's Mum]: It makes me feel absolutely great because when Charlie started the school, he was in a bad way and then Adam, and the rest of the school,have all helped build him up, to where he is now, and I can't thank them enough.