All those who attended the third WDS Fun and Conference Day at London Zoo on the 19th May will agree that the children went away happy and parents/carers went away with a better understanding. Over fifty families attended the event from all over England and people travelled from as far a field as New Zealand and Norway to learn more about this little-known syndrome.

Thanks to the Children’s No 1 Foundation, who funded the event, the support group was able to offer the families excellent crèche facilities. This was organised and run by a wonderful group of professionals from the Log Cabin and New Games UK.

Families were given bright yellow presentation packs which included useful information and the children were given specially printed T-shirts to mark the occasion as well as a London Zoo Lion for a leaving present. This event wasn’t just about having fun, it was to enable us to hold our inaugural general meeting, talk about our constitution, and discuss our financial concerns for the coming year. All this was done and we all agreed it was a resounding success.

Chairman, Mr. Gavin Leech commenced the proceedings by thanking everyone for their continued support. He talked about the reasons for being a registered charity and the greater need for more research and support to be available. He also discussed raising funds amounting to £150,000, for a three-year research project into WDS.

We held a successful Question and Answers session lead by a panel of highly qualified individuals. They all share the same dreams of more research and the need for a better understanding of the syndrome. Professor Brian Neville headed the panel along with Paediatric Neurologist Professor Renzo Guerrini, and Senior Specialists in Speech and Language Therapy Katie Price and Nicola Jollef. The session was very important as it answered many of their queries on the Syndrome.

Our primary goal as a group is to support families whose children are affected by WDS, many of who had never met, and share information on its treatment, care management and early diagnosis. I think those that attended will agree that this was definitely achieved.