05-21-2006, 11:18 PM
The Birmingham mother of an autistic teenager has launched a group to help support-starved carers benefit from her experiences in improving her son's quality of life
Jacqueline Grant founded B-Autistic to remedy the lack of support services and provisions for people caring for special needs children.
The organization, based in the Harborne area, supplies trained volunteers to school clubs that need special needs assistance, resource centre facilities and training to support clients with independent living.
She told The Voice: "Bringing up kids is very difficult and autism makes it is so much harder, but we persevered as a family. There is a lack of support for such children because there is a lot of misunderstanding, even among the authorities, schools and agencies that are supposed to understand."
UNSUITABLE
Jacqueline recalls the unsuitability of special and residential schools where she has placed James, now 19, even alleging he sustained physical injuries that the authorities failed to investigate, resulting in long stints at home.
"You have to constantly battle to get support," she added. "Parents and carers need to have a break themselves - which means a place where their kids can go and they know they will be safe - without them having to feel guilty or interrupt it. I feel that I have a duty to make sure what's happened to James does not happens to anyone else."
Jacqueline realised something was unusual when, at six months old, James repeatedly failed development tests. Diagnosed aged three, medics reckoned James would never look at her.
The extra support and socializing she and daughter Jessica have put in has enabled them to establish eye contact with James, interact and take him on incident-free trips outdoors, which is unusual with most autistics.
"A lot of the talk about inclusion is only cosmetic and I am particularly concerned for young black boys with autism and how easy it is for the police and social services to misunderstand them. They could be seen as exhibiting questionable behaviour when quite often they are just frightened."
From voice-online.co.uk
Jacqueline Grant founded B-Autistic to remedy the lack of support services and provisions for people caring for special needs children.
The organization, based in the Harborne area, supplies trained volunteers to school clubs that need special needs assistance, resource centre facilities and training to support clients with independent living.
She told The Voice: "Bringing up kids is very difficult and autism makes it is so much harder, but we persevered as a family. There is a lack of support for such children because there is a lot of misunderstanding, even among the authorities, schools and agencies that are supposed to understand."
UNSUITABLE
Jacqueline recalls the unsuitability of special and residential schools where she has placed James, now 19, even alleging he sustained physical injuries that the authorities failed to investigate, resulting in long stints at home.
"You have to constantly battle to get support," she added. "Parents and carers need to have a break themselves - which means a place where their kids can go and they know they will be safe - without them having to feel guilty or interrupt it. I feel that I have a duty to make sure what's happened to James does not happens to anyone else."
Jacqueline realised something was unusual when, at six months old, James repeatedly failed development tests. Diagnosed aged three, medics reckoned James would never look at her.
The extra support and socializing she and daughter Jessica have put in has enabled them to establish eye contact with James, interact and take him on incident-free trips outdoors, which is unusual with most autistics.
"A lot of the talk about inclusion is only cosmetic and I am particularly concerned for young black boys with autism and how easy it is for the police and social services to misunderstand them. They could be seen as exhibiting questionable behaviour when quite often they are just frightened."
From voice-online.co.uk