The birth of Emmerdale character Rhona Goskirk’s baby son Leo has brought Down’s Syndrome into the spotlight.

The Yorkshire soap’s current storyline, about the birth of a Downs Syndrome baby, sensitively explores the emotions parents experience when they discover their child has the condition.

And according to Dr Wendy Uttley, whose 13-year-old son, Sam, has Down’s Syndrome, it is helping to challenge people’s perceptions.

“I think it has been very positive,” says Wendy. “There hasn’t been any ‘Oh, the baby has got Down’s Syndrome’, which some parents do experience rather than being congratulated. It hasn’t gone on that side at all, which is really positive.

“It is showing the rest of society that this is just a baby, and it will be interesting to see how they develop the storyline.”

Wendy hopes that awareness raised through the storyline, understood to have been inspired by a Bradford mother whose daughter was born with Down’s Syndrome, will prompt people to support Down’s Syndrome Training and Support Services Ltd, the Bradford centre she set up to deliver educational training to schools.

In one Emmerdale scene involving Rhona, her partner Paddy Kirk and Leo’s father, Marlon Dingle, youngsters from the Thackley centre, and parents, were filmed playing football at a sports centre in Leeds.

Wendy’s passion for helping youngsters with Down’s Syndrome to realise their potential is driven by personal experience. She will never forget the negative words ‘If you have decided to keep your child’ she read in a book shortly after having Sam.

Wendy began researching the condition and she and her partner, Peter Murray, who also have an older daughter Elanor, compiled a 20-minute video of Sam baking and riding around the garden of their Bradford home.

The couple’s determination to challenge the negative perceptions about the condition, going back to the days when people with Down’s Syndrome spent their lives in institutions with no hope and no prospects, led them to set up a support group for parents.

Running monthly meetings and sharing experiences at conferences, they tapped into a need for improved education and training.

Before the 1980s, youngsters with Down’s Syndrome weren’t allowed into mainstream school. That has now changed and through Down’s Syndrome Training and Support Services, Wendy and her team are helping youngsters with the condition realise their potential in education and through life.

Wendy launched the charity in 2000 and began delivering training four years later. A £150,000 legacy from Bradford chimney sweep Hughie Sunter, who died in 2003, enabled them to move to their premises in Thackley, named the Pamela Sunter centre after Hughie’s daughter who had Down’s Syndrome.

In December, the money will run out, prompting Wendy to launch a £100,000 appeal.

“Come December a lot of staff contracts will expire and they will not be renewed unless we can get some more money,” she says. “The lease on the building expires as well, so we need to make sure we have money to continue.”

The organisation has applied to the Big Lottery fund, but won’t know whether it has been successful until August, leaving little time to raise the money if it hasn’t secured a grant.

A Just Giving page linked to Facebook and Twitter has been set up, and the charity also hopes to raise money through sponsored events such as a walk in Ilkley in July.

Wendy says the educational training and support provided by the centre is a ‘lifeline’.

“And not just to the mums who have recently given birth; it is an ongoing lifeline,” she adds.

She explains that the centre supports parents through the initial months which can be difficult. It also helps parents when seeking a school and supports parents and children after starting school.

The centre also provides training courses around educating a child with Down’s Syndrome. Around 500 people have benefited from training so far.

Speech and language support is another service the centre provides. Wendy says research shows youngsters with Down’s Syndrome benefit from birth onwards with speech, language and communication skills.

“It’s my life now and it’s not just my life, it is a lot of other people’s lives and the lives of their children,” says Wendy.

For more information, call (01274) 616966. To make a donation, visit downsupportbradford.btck.co.uk.