This is my first post so hello everyone. I am a committee member of our local NAS group. All of us who run the group are first and foremost parents of children or young adults with ASD and have all the same crises and problems as any other carers. In addition we give up a lot of our free time to run the group and as well as offering telephone support have got a number of local respite and support services running which are now funded by the local authority.
This is a huge commitment for us, but the NAS was initially set up by parents and on a local level at least, is still run by parents. If people are not willing to join up, set up new groups or participate in ones already running then it will not survive. All local groups receive some practical advice from the NAS but have to be self funding, yet local groups can often offer more specific advice than the NAS hotlines etc as they know how local services run and who to contact etc.
So I would suggest that you try your local group if there is one, but at the same time remember that those running it are almost certainly unpaid volunteers, squeezing it in to busy lives and although we do try to help we aren't perfect!
