Something nice

[KarenT]

J's been offered a place on a social/self-development group run by a national children's charity beginning with B

 

He'll join a group of around 6 children with various disabilities. They set themselves individual self-improvement goals to work towards and meet weekly to give each other support and feedback on how they're getting on. They do a Feelings segment where they talk about anything that's affected them that week, and two pieces of pre-arranged work per session. They have snacks and will be encouraged to try new foods (nobody has EVER worked on this with J before). There's a lot of emphasis on sharing, turn-taking, negotiating and planning events as a group.

 

Aside from the personal development work, they also get involved in community based project work. They're currently involved in surveying play equipment in local parks to find out whether it's accessible to a range of disabilities, and their comments get fed back to the Council for future planning. There's even talk that their findings could get sent to the designers and manufacturers so that faults can be corrected at early stages.

 

He'll meet the group of children during the summer holidays for activities (once a week) then the work groups start in September. This is a fantastic opportunity for J as he hasn't had much social training outside of home and I can tell he'll learn so much from this. Plus, the workers are familiar with the strategies we use at home and have asked for copies of his 5-point scales etc so they can use the same methods in the group.

 

All very exciting!!

 

Karen

x

[oxgirl]

Wow, that sounds wonderful, a really exciting opportunity for your lad. How did you find out about such a group? Wish they ran one like that around here. <'>

 

Hope it goes well.

 

~ Mel ~

[bikemad]

That sounds fantastic.

[Bagpuss]

He'll love it won't he

[ASue67]

That's fantastic Karen

[Cariad]

That sounds fab KarenT, I wish they had something like that in Cardiff. He'll have a great time I'm sure

[pearl]

brilliant, & something nice to do in the hols as well. We had many years involvement with B*******s - I still cant decide whether they were really good or really c**p - could tell you both v good & v bad stories about our experiences with them.

[KarenT]

Thanks for your pos vibes guys.

 

I think it helps that we're known to this particular family centre as I've been going to their AS support group for three years, and although not many staff have met J in person he's well known in anecdotal terms. He's also met some people (not connected with this particular group) at a Dads' Group but because of dh's shifts that's not been as often as we'd have liked.

 

Apparently vacancies don't come up on this group very often. I was lucky to strike up a good relationship with a new support worker last year, who was pointed in my direction for info on AS support strategies when she was assigned to cover the support group. When a space came up she thought of J because I'd always complained that he'd never had any official support. I think this will be ideal for J because he's already used to working towards progress targets, and he'll learn so much from it. It's open-ended too - one girl has been attending for six years and doesn't want to move on because she gets so much from it.

 

J's first goal is to try and remember things he's done outside of school to tell his friends. It'll help him start up conversations and make connections with people when he gets too grown up and cool for chucking dry grass cuttings at each other

 

Will let you know how it goes

 

Karen

x

[Zosmum]

Sounds Brill

[sesley]

hi we have P on a charity run holiday playscheme, they pick him up in a bus about 9 half past nine take him to a play base and bring him back about 2/3pm,we were advised that P needs to learn some independence from us and have fun,so this group Hapi ,a charity run playscehem for primary age as they are called came to our Earlybird meetings and i got him a place and today they took him out to a farm and he loves it not a bit bothered we aren't going to and they understand him too, like he wasn't sure if he should get off the bus to the base orwait to go back on with the group to the farm and they were so understanding of his confustion he goes 2 days a week through the holidays and i wasn't sure if he would get upset, but he hasn't he gets off the bus with i missed you mum and today so hopefully he is getting good experiences from it. still won't use public toilets with strangers yet,maybe he will one day