As children with autism grow older, their needs change. The Red Door wants to provide a service to older children and teenagers with autism, and their families, with a service that does not currently exist.
School is only one part of the overall needs of our children. We want to provide social and recreational activities to help individuals with autism to develop the skills to enjoy life and mix with their peers. We have identified activities that include dance, yoga, drama and gym work that can be engaged in by all. We propose to develop our Community Project to provide these and other after-school activities for not only teenagers and young adults with autism, but also to include peers not on the spectrum – typical teenagers and young adults. We also want to provide support for parents.
We want to offer these activities in a safe environment with suitably-trained staff.
We have started the work of fitting out the Community Block with a Parent Training/Library room, a Gym room, an Activities room (for Dance, Yoga & Drama), a Kitchen/Cafe room (for teaching cooking and domestic skills and serving other staff and pupils meals and snacks), and a Teen room (strictly teenagers only, including DVD’s, CD’s, bean bags – anything required for relaxation).
But this work takes time and resources. Once set up, we need to develop the Curriculum of Activities and train the staff to provide the service. Once up-and-running, the benefits will be enormous. To make this happen, we need financial assistance.
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