Mum of girl with rare condition campaigning for supermarkets to have accessible trolleys

Characteristic features of her condition include delayed development, severe learning difficulties, epilepsy, little or no speech, and issues with movement and balance.

Although two-year-old Maeve has a normal life expectancy, she will require support throughout her life.

Maeve’s mother, Emma Bowers, who works as a teacher at special needs school The Orchard School in Oldbury, has started a campaign for every supermarket to have at least one GoTo shopping trolley available. Emma said: “Despite Maeve being non-verbal, she is incredibly sociable and loves interacting with people through smiles and gestures. One of her favourite things to do is to go shopping. and she has all of the supermarket symbols in her communication book!

“As she is getting older and bigger, this is becoming an increasingly difficult task. Maeve cannot yet sit unaided so she uses a specialist seat called a GoTo which fits inside a regular shopping trolley. We carry this seat with us in the car wherever go.

“To get Maeve into this seat, both myself and Maeve’s dad, Luke, must be there as she needs to be lifted in and fastened safely in position.

“This is impossible to do alone and is becoming increasingly more difficult as Maeve gets closer to the 15kg limit of the trolley.

“In order to take Maeve shopping by myself, I have to push Maeve in her wheelchair and then push a trolley alongside me.”

However, the company who makes the GoTo seat to fit inside the shopping trollies have also designed a specially adapted open-front trolley which eradicates theneed for stressful shopping visits for parents of children with physical additional needs.

Emma added: “The child can be easily transferred into the seat without the need to dangle them in the air or try to fit their legs through the small holes.

“They are then safely fastened using the 5-point harness and the trolley can hold up to 35kg weight limit which would accommodate someone around the age of 14, as oppose to the current 15kg limit, which can accommodate a child around the age of three.”

“Before having Maeve, we took for granted simple tasks such as going to the park and going shopping but now we must think about things so much more carefully, plan ahead and, unfortunately, buy specialist seating to make life accessible for her. We are asking all of our local supermarkets to support the ‘One in Every Supermarket’ campaign. We have delivered leaflets to our local Aldi, Lidl, Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s stores asking for their support but we have yet to hear back from a single store.

“Supermarkets currently have every other type of trolley available apart from this one and it would mean so much to so many families if supermarkets could see the benefits too and stop alienating such a large number of families in the local area.

“Even just having one GoTo trolley in each supermarket would make those supermarkets accessible for families like us.” And Emma, Luke, and Maeve were thrilled this week when they went to Tesco at the Crown Centre in Stourbridge to deliver leaflets and saw one of the GoTo trolleys in the supermarket.

Emma said: “We were so surprised because we hadn’t actually approached that supermarket. As soon as we saw it we thought ‘let’s get her in it’ and it was so easy!

“This is something me and Luke could do on our own because it is so simple. Normally we go shopping together so one person can lift Maeve in and the other can manoeuvre her legs in, or one pushes the trolley and the other pushes her wheelchair.

“Otherwise, some families may avoid shopping altogether. It’s something I didn’t really think about until I had Maeve.”

Despite being a teacher at a special needs school for six years, Emma says her understanding of accessibility issues has deepened since the birth of her daughter.

When there are no Changing Places toilets for Maeve to use, Maeve is now too long to comfortably be changed at a baby changing station.

Instead, Emma and Luke will have to take a mat and lie it on the floor to change Maeve, or even in the boot of their car.

Emma, who is a teacher at The Orchard School in Oldbury, said: “I am a teacher for children with special educational needs so I feel it is my duty to try and raise awareness from both a personal and a professional perspective.

“My empathy for families has developed even further since receiving Maeve’s diagnosis as parents have to fight for every aspect of a child’s life.”

Despite Maeve’s condition being incredibly rare, Emma has actually taught two children with Angelman Syndrome while working at The Orchard, and hopes Maeve will eventually attend the Oldbury school.

“I believe I was put in this job for a reason,” Emma said. “Everything I’ve learned from the job has helped me as a mom to Maeve. A lot of people believe Maeve was given to us for a reason.”