About Us

The Clare Crusaders Children's Charity was founded in 2005 by the late Howard Flannery, Ann Norton and Frank Cassidy to provide much needed therapy to Children with Special Needs in areas such as CerebralPalsy, Autism, and DownSyndrome and other conditions. The Clare Crusaders Children's Clinic, located in Barefield Co.Clare is run on a voluntary basics and provides a variety of therapies to 190+ children in the Clare region. The services are free of charge and include speech therapy, occupational therapy, special education, physiotherapy and reflexology.

The Clare Crusaders does not recieve any government funding and relies on the fundraising and donations to generate the 250,000 euro required each year to maintain our existing services.

Donations can be made through our website or by making a cheque payable to the Clare Crusaders and sending it to: Clare Crusaders Clinic, Barefield Village, Barefield, County Clare.

If you would like more information about the clinic, please email clinic@clarecrusaders.ie. You can read more about who we are and what we do. For further information please contact our Clinic Manager, Ann Norton on 0876679340. You can also follow us on facebook but following the link on the homepage.

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Therapists

Ann Norton

Ann Norton manages the Clare Crusaders Clinic on a voluntary basis. She is a mother of 3 and her oldest daughter Nicole has CerebralPalsy. Ann is also a Reflexolgist with over 16 years experience and provides 10 hours per week of reflexology to children attending the clinic. Ann is also involved in various fund-raising projects and has done so since the inception of the Clare Crusaders.

If you are planning on organising a fund-raising event for the Clare Crusaders, please contact events@clarecrusaders.ie beforehand to have all details centrally available.

Patricia Mavimbela

Patricia Mavimbela is our Senior Speech / Language Therapist and Audiologist. She has extensive clinical experience working with speech, language and hearing impaired children and adults since 1995.

Anél Wiese

Anél Wiese is our physiotherapist registered with the Irish Society of Chartered Physiotherapists, the Health Professionals Council of South Africa and she is a member of the Chartered Physiotherapists in Paediatrics. She qualified at the University of Stellenbosch, Cape Town South Africa and gained valuable experience working in the public health sector as well as doing locum work in various private clinics.

Due to her extensive training in paediatric neurology and working experience in this field, she joined the Clare Crusaders early in 2008. All her children are individually assessed and treated according to scientific evidence based practice.

Anél works closely with parents / primary caregivers as well as the rest of the multidisciplinary team employed by the Clare Crusaders to ensure comprehensive and effective treatment on a regular basis.

Mary Frawley

Mary Frawley is our occupational therapist. Mary qualified in June 2008 with an honours occupational therapy degree (BSc Hons occupational therapy) from the University College Cork (UCC).

Mary’s caseload consists primarily of children with the diagnosis of autistic spectrum disorders, intellectual disabilities, developmental coordination disorder, Cerebral Palsy and Down Syndrome. Her role is to assess and collaboratively set therapeutic goals with each child and to subsequently provide effective interventions which will facilitate each child to achieve their goals.

Mary is registered with the Department of Health and Children and is a member of the Association of Occupational Therapists of Ireland. She has gained experience working with children of all ages and various special needs since graduating from university and thoroughly enjoys working as a paediatric occupational therapist.

Aoiffe Lynch

Aoiffe Lynch is our Special Education Teacher and graduated with a B.A degree in Montessori Education from St. Nicholas Montessori College in 2008. Her degree enables her to teach children up to 12 years of age. As part of her training Aoiffe has gained an extensive knowledge in many aspects of Montessori Education including Montessori Theory, Methodology, Psychology and Special Education.

Aoiffe’s caseload consists primarily of children with the diagnosis of autistic spectrum disorders, intellectual disabilities or learning delays, Cerebral Palsy and Down syndrome. Part of her role is to improve the child’s cognitive functions, fine motor skills, hand eye coordination and to help concentration. Aoiffe works closely with the rest of the multi-disciplinary team to provide suitable learning strategies that suit the needs of each individual child.

Aoiffe has completed Children’s First child protection and Welfare Issues course during her Montessori training. Aoiffe is also a member of the Teaching Council of Ireland.