Skip to content ↓

19th October 2021, Parent- Carer Group

Here's an overview of this week's parent-carer group session...

This week we took a break from welcoming outside agencies, we had a relaxed session and our parent/carer group really cover a wide range of topics within their conversations.  We talked about ...

  • Melatonin

 

  • Short Breaks Matrix

 

  •   The difficulties felt in realising your child has SEN and trying to decide between special or mainstream schooling

 

  • Sign language   

Parents/carers found it very difficult in regard to the variety of sign available such as BSL, SSE, Makaton and Signalong.  We signposted parents/carers to our school YouTube channel where Anna provides weekly tutorials for Signalong (used by school).

 

  • Culture

Did you know in some cultures there is no word for Autism?  Some of our parents/carers families and communities struggle to understand the needs of our learners because Autism is not recognised in their communities.  For example, some families have recommended home remedies etc to encourage children to talk.  This prompted a wonderful discussion as to personal experiences and the support available within individual families and communities.  We also discovered that many of our families are bilingual and some can speak multiple languages!

 

  • Film Festival

Our parent/carers spoke of their appreciation for our recent event, the Film Festival and Scarecrow Trail.  Something I'd not taken into account when supporting the event was the fact that parents/carers had the opportunity to meet one-anothers children.  The benefits of this became apparent in today's session and parents/carers spoke about this topic and the fact that it was great to be able to meet each other's children whom we discuss on a weekly basis.  Comments as 'He really looks like you,' 'I see what you mean when you say he does this,' 'I saw him bouncing up and down just like you said he does,'etc were great to hear, especially as I'd not considered this opportunity, but it was clearly appreciated.

 

Thanks so much for a great session which provided such a wonderful insight into the individual experiences of our families.

Carole Kelly

Springside Family Support Worker