SAFE :: Supporting Asperger's Families in Essex
Social Skills Initiatives in SAFE
In the summer of 1997, a month or two after our first setting up SAFE we experimented with a social event. We had no idea whether Asperger children would get on together as no-one had, to our knowledge, tried to do this in Essex. We held an informal summer barbecue to which people brought their own food. We provided some games and a local walk. We found that not only did the Asperger children manage an afternoon in the company of each other and the non-Asperger siblings who also came along, but they seemed to enjoy the occasion and attempted some 'joining in'. Even more surprising was the parents' response. They were all enthusiastic about the afternoon and many said this was the first time they had ever been out with their Asperger child and felt they had to explain or apologise for him or her. Ever since we have regularly arranged social events for our members' families - at first a Christmas dinner in a local restaurant or pub and a summer party at a member's house or a beach.
Last year we teamed up with Colchester MIND, Millennium Volunteers and students in the psychology department at Essex University to run a befriending scheme for our 18+ members. This proved surprisingly difficult to organise, due in part to the necessary protection that had to be put in place for befrienders and A/S volunteers and also to the shortness of the university terms. So although several befriending meetings took place, everything ground to a halt when uni exams loomed in May.
Recently we have been encouraged by SAFE members volunteering to take over social events for certain age groups. Elaine & Gerry Reilly have set up SClub Youth for younger teenagers. This has got off to an excellent start with a group of young people meeting regularly to go bowling, to practise cookery and to plan outings such as the expedition to the Science Museum before Christmas to see the Lord of the Rings exhibition and the Christmas lights. We were very grateful to Day Trippers who paid for this outing. This group has really 'gelled', forming friendships, looking forward to the next meeting and enjoying their time together. Now we are working on providing something similar for our younger children and also for our adult members.
But we also feel strongly that friendship groups do not solve all problems and do not suit all Asperger people. We feel that social skills training should be part of the post-diagnosis package for every Asperger person. In Essex such schemes are almost non-existent. Several years ago there was a six week pilot near Chelmsford which aimed to show the six Asperger youngsters who attended how to organise a social event. The financial input was minimal - a dozen hours of two professionals and two support workers. But, five years on these youngsters still contact each other and arrange visits and meals together.
In 2001 SAFE persuaded VISTA to provide social skills training to our over-18s. And, last February, Southend SAFE was awarded £7440 by Southend & Thurrock Connexions Partnership to create two social skills training groups for A/S people aged 13-16 and 17-20.
This may all seem as if social skills provision is happening in Essex but SAFE feels that there is a long way to go. Even if every parent and every primary and secondary school in the county was providing social skills training for their A/S children (and they certainly aren't!) the above initiatives are no more than pilot schemes of short duration, never assessed or built on in a useful way. Assessing such courses is difficult for a number of reasons. Sometimes the A/S person is shocked into a realisation of what their disability means so they appear to receive no benefit; others are unable to transfer their newly-leanrt skills to home or school. For this reason these courses have to be carefully assessed and success and failure criteria drawn up in the context of the autistic world rather than the neuro-typical world.
Supporting Asperger's Families in Essex
