A busy and exciting 2024 for Employers For Childcare and High Rise

Having celebrated two years since our reopening in July, 2024 was another fun-filled year for High Rise and another impactful year for our parent charity, Employers For Childcare.

We welcomed 20,000 guests to Northern Ireland’s largest Clip ‘n Climb arena, 9,000 mini adventurers to our soft play and over 3,000 guests to explore the interactive equipment in our innovative sensory rooms. This year we saw many more bookings from schools, youth clubs, charities and corporate groups looking for a fun and different day out.

The feedback was phenomenal with 95% of guests rating their visit as ‘excellent’ or ‘very good’. Some comments included:

“Thank you for accommodating our school yesterday. The children literally said it was the best day ever! Thanks to all your staff, each one was great, very helpful and great with the kids. I will be back with my own children.”

“This was our tenth visit to High Rise since last June. We value the autism sessions greatly as they provide a safe space for us as a family. High Rise is somewhere I know we can go each month that will be stress free. The staff never fail to impress us with their kindness and consideration.”

“Fantastic day spent at High Rise in Clip ‘n Climb. My dad who is in his 60s trumped myself & my young son at the wall climbs and even did the Leap of Faith. The staff were 10/10 – very attentive, informative and good craic which made the experience memorable. We will definitely be back!”

For this wonderful customer service we must say a huge thank you to our dedicated staff team, who go over and above every single day to provide the positive customer service that our guests value so much.

We are especially proud of how we support guests with additional needs, as High Rise offers the most inclusive and accessible leisure experience possible. In 2024 we provided autism friendly activities on a weekly basis with additional sessions during school holidays. Our recent autism friendly Santa event was truly magical, and meant so much to families that the children could visit Santa in an inclusive and supportive environment.

During the past year we introduced our ‘free soft play’ initiative, supporting families by providing quality play opportunities that they may not otherwise be able to afford. In addition at these free soft play sessions, an advisor from our charity is on site to help parents ensure they are claiming all the financial support they are entitled to.

And as well as being a top class, fun day out, every visit to High Rise helps us to continue the vital work of our charity, supporting parents to get into and stay in work! We want to say a massive thank you to our guests for choosing to ‘buy social’. Your support over the past year allowed us to help over 13,000 parents identify over £12 million in financial support they didn’t know they were entitled to.

We are incredibly proud of the record of our charity over the past 20+ years. We have led the way in campaigning for childcare to be recognised as an economic and labour market issue, and we welcome the priority that it has been given by the restored Executive. Our years of lobbying and research work helped to ensure childcare was at the very top of the agenda for the new Ministers, and has led to the announcement of a £25 million package of support for families and the childcare sector.

While much more needs to be done, we support this as a welcome ‘first step’ but progress on the long-awaited new Childcare Strategy is urgently required to set out a long-term plan which supports parents to access the childcare they need, and enables providers to deliver it.

We, along with others, have participated for years in focus groups and inquiries and have provided innumerable research studies, data and evidence as to what is needed. It is therefore hugely disappointing that in December 2024, despite the reams of research already available, even more is being gathered. One might ask why? What possible questions still need to be asked which haven’t already been answered by those at the coal face.  Now is not the time for more research. Now is the time for delivery – before yet another generation of children miss out on high quality early years education because their parents are unable to access it. Now is the time for action!

For us 2024 is not yet finished, and we are looking forward to welcoming lots of happy guests over the busy Christmas holidays, and we would take this opportunity to wish everyone a peaceful and happy Christmas and New Year. We look forward to continuing to deliver amazing customer service for our guests in 2025.

For High Rise Christmas and New Year opening times, click here.