Alphabetically Autistic – A Social Enterprise

I have been bursting to tell you this exciting news.  Over the last couple of months myself, Alison Stanley from Red Diamond Theatre and my sister in law Kelly Best have been meeting to talk about what we feel as mothers of autistic children (ranging from child to adult) is missing from the system in terms of practical advice, not text book advice.  Real scenarios with real people.  People who live with autism 24/7.  The ones operating on 3 hours sleep and the ones dealing with problems daily.

Alphabetically Autistic is something that Alison has been working on for a little while.  I was ecstatic when she asked myself and Kelly to come along and give our views and my opinion on the play The Life of Reilly.

Alphabetically Autistic is a social enterprise that will focus on the A-Z of autism and will consist of 6 week workshops with plenty of time to converse with other parents in the same boat.  Available to parents of children awaiting diagnosis or recently diagnosed.   We will also run a group for grandparents, they are often missed out of the loop but tend to be the main caregivers when parents are in work.  These courses will be informal, non judgemental and humourous and will cover  benefits, sleep, obsessions, education  plus much more.  It will also include speakers who are on the autistic spectrum as well as health and teaching professionals to give their input.

We will offer day sessions to employers and workplaces to understand why that parent of the autistic child is sometimes half an hour late or needs a duvet day at such short notice,   they have often done a full days work before 7am.  How employees can assist and help with autistic children and adults also the benefits to employing an autistic person.

Alongside the Red Diamond Theatre Company we will stage The Life of Reilly with Glenn McCrory and Really Reilly a play designed to help neuro-typical children understand why some of their classmates behave differently.

We will offer an autism specific counseling service via Kelly who is a qualified counsellor for children and young adults on the spectrum, anxiety and depression levels are incredibly high but also parents who are struggling coming to terms with diagnosis.

We will offer products to make life easier such as the multilingual QR cards I found so incredibly useful whilst holidaying Spain last week.  Product advice which we will have tested as parents such as communication systems, trackers and clothing.

The possibilities are endless.  We will launch our first workshop in November and will host a ‘Rocking the Spectrum’ concert to kick us off in style at the end of October.  I really hope I will see you all there.

Please support us by following our facebook page Alphabetically Autistic and watch for updates.  If you are touched by autism in any way please do contact us and see if we can help.  As the tagline says this is practical not perfect, there’ll be no added glitter but everyone who attends will find it useful i’m sure.

Please contact us at alphaautistic@gmail.com for more information or if you would like to discuss sponsorship opportunities for Alphabetically Autistic.