What’s the story of HOPE?

My husband and I had a child diagnosed with Autism at the age of six. From an early age we were aware that things weren’t quite right with our son, but we couldn’t put our finger on it.

He was a very bright child, always engaged in reading, learning, a fascination with science and numbers. I think a lot of the time because I worked I a professional capacity with children I would often get asked, ‘Is this normal? Is this right’, and I would think maybe we just had a bright child. But only when he started nursery and nursery school, that’s when the realisation came about that our son would struggle socially and would find that he would get upset.

That’s when we started seeing advice and from that having the diagnosis that your child is Autistic is a positive situation. My thinking was, ‘now we can go to school and tell them that this is what he has been diagnosed with. How are you going to help him and support him in school? I can’t really fault the school, because I have heard negative feedback in relation to schools. But we have had a positive experience. Therefore from the things I’ve heard from other parents, that’s where hope came about. In terms of wanting to support parents with the trials and the ups and downs of managing a child with Autism.

We are in the baby stages. HOPE is Helping Other Parents to be Empowered and we kicked off in March 2019 with a small group of parents, but finding that we had a lot of things in common, with some of the things parents were saying in relation to their child’s sensory needs, their social interaction, their metdowns. I could only nod and think ‘Im not the only one’, but also other parents felt the same.

It’s also been quite positive in the sense of parents saying thank you because that’s what I needed. When parents have left I’ve had personal text messages to say what you’re doing is a really good thing. So it can only move forward and get greater and greater.