In the magical light of the sensory room, an 18-month-old girl crawls under a mass of glittering fibre-optic cable. 'It's Christmas!' she coos. With the help of a member of staff, a five-year-old boy with cerebral palsy joins her. Soon he, too, is smiling broadly.
The sensory room is just one of the facilities which makes the Ezra Family Resource Centre in Woolwich, London ('Ezra' is the Hebrew for 'helper') special. It is a haven of quietness and light, with its soft white cushions, bubble columns, glitterball, music and aromatherapy.
A rotating illumination of an idealised cityscape, looked over by a benign sun and moon, is projected against one wall. But this is a far cry from the deprived estate in which the Centre is based, within a ward which has one of Europe's highest indices of perinatal (around the time of birth) mortality, a classic indicator of poverty. While parents have responded positively to the services on offer, staff have come in from time to time to find windows smashed or graffiti daubed on the walls.
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