Planning for the Future

13/09/2021

PACC ‘In Touch’ Course for parent carers supporting Young people with Learning Disabilities and/or Autism aged 13 – 25 years

Weekly online sessions (10am – 12pm) starting 21st Sept 2021 

We know that supporting a young person with Learning Disabilities and/or Autism can be challenging at times.  Young people who have difficulties with communication and understanding can significantly impact family life and even the simplest family activity can become difficult. 

We also know that these young people can develop behaviours that are difficult to manage, which can become more of an issue as they grow and can result in a poorer quality of life in adulthood.

Living with both behaviours that challenge and worries about the future can be difficult for parent carers of young people with learning disabilities and/or autism, resulting in feeling isolated and a sense that they are failing as parents.  Receiving the right support and advice is essential and can make a big difference to both the experience of parent carers and the outcomes for young people with learning disabilities or autism.  This is why, with funding from Shropshire Clinical Commissioning Group, we have developed the ‘In Touch’ course, which we are offering to parent carers, of young people with a learning disability or autism aged 13-25 years (who are at mainstream or specialist settings)

‘In Touch’ aims to provide parent carers with an opportunity to talk with others who understand their family life, to share experiences and to know that they are not alone.  It will also provide specialist advice from practitioners who understand the impact of behaviours that challenge and the importance of supporting families in their caring role.  Every other session will focus on a particular theme, which will enable parent carers to develop the skills and knowledge to reduce the impact of these behaviours and to plan positively for the future. The sessions in between the advice sessions will be a facilitated chat, led by PACC, providing a chance to talk about the themes covered in previous sessions or just to share how you are feeling or any worries you may have. For the last two of these chat sessions we will also be joined by Steve Farmer, who will be able to respond to questions about Positive Behaviour Support.  The timetable for the ‘In Touch’ course is available here, we will use Zoom to deliver these sessions.

The online chat sessions will continue to be offered on a monthly basis, once the initial course is completed. This first course will be run as a pilot and will hopefully enable us to attract funding for further courses to be offered.

If you are interested in joining the course and benefiting from this support and advice please contact Sarah Thomas at PACC as soon as possible, on enquiries@paccshropshire.org.uk or 07398120311. We are limiting the places to 12 parent carers per course, so if you are interested please contact us asap.  If you have any questions Sarah will be happy to chat with you about the course.