Parent Support Group

[MissPitstop]

I am currently starting up a parent support group for parents of children with Autism as there is nothing available in my area. I would really appreciate any input from your vast experience.

What services are available in your area?
What services did you find of most use?
What wasnt that helpful?
What do you wish was available to you but isnt?

Thanks Miss P

[Yummymum1]

Hi Miss P

Well done to you for taking the initiative and getting something going.Good luck,I hope it is a success.

In our area we have several things for parents with asd children.

One of the most recent is a group meeting once a month for parents/carers and each session has a different theme where they have speakers in or reps from other services to let you know what is available.This is great as you often have no idea what is out there or what you are entitled to.

Another is a sort of youth club on a friday evening for all the family including siblings where asd children can hang out with play staions,computers,tv,pool table etc and the parents can meet others in a similar situation.
There is a scheme that runs in the holidays where the whole family go out on outings as a group at reduced costs on a coach.I havent done this yet but these last summer holidays were pretty dire so i will be looking at that for next year!!

Hope this helps and good luck with your group.

[MissPitstop]

Thanks Yummy Mum

One of the first things I wanted to get started was a group meeting.

I was maybe loking at a resources library, I know I have spent a fortune on books, timetables etc I thought that being able to access these for a fortnight before you buy to see if its what you want might be useful.

Id love to be able to run a youth club and holiday activities but guess I need to do a bit of fundraising first!

[donkeyderby]

We have an asd support group but unfortunately no regular support groups that are not impairment-specific (ASD, Downs etc.) which leaves a lot of parents with no support. A lot of the information around ASD can be also just as helpful to parents of SN kids who don't have ASD - something to bear in mind if you need to bump the numbers up.

The ASD support group does not seem to cater for severe autism, and the local Autistic Society also excludes those with severe autism so not helpful to me and others like ds.

The spectrum is very wide and parents will have very different experiences and expectations, so maybe it's worth making your suppport as broad as possible and acknowledging that parents won't always share the same experiences.

I would find it helpful if there was a group that was specific to SLD including ASD.

Good luck

[Yummymum1]

That sounds like a good start. The first session we had with thw support group was a sort of brainstorming session where everyone wrote what they would like from the group,times,days,how often,venue,etc and what they would like to get out of the group.This was then all put together and the group set up to please as many peaople as pos!!
I find it so helpful having these groups as it can feel very isolating when friends dont really know what i mean about things and in these groups you really feel you are not alone!

[MissPitstop]

I was looking at support for the whole spectrum as I agree that a lot of stuff tend to be on AS. Im not sure how confident I would be supporting parents with other SN kids, I dont have any experince of this. Maybe the best thing would be to say that we are ASD mainly but if the parents thought we could support them too then they are more than welcome to join us. That way they are not excluded and Im sure they know best whether or not the support would be relevant. Mind you a friendly face, cup of tea and a listening ear could be helpful to any parents.