Nursery World - Help with autism for up to 1,800 families

A scheme to help parents of young children who have been newly diagnosed as autistic reached a milestone last week when it completed the training of its 300th licensed user. The National Autistic Society's EarlyBird parent programme, which was first piloted in Barnsley, Yorkshire, in 1998 to help six families, now has licensed users as far away as Malta and New Zealand. The charity reckons that with 300 practitioners now trained, there is the potential to reach 1,800 families a year.

The National Autistic Society's EarlyBird parent programme, which was first piloted in Barnsley, Yorkshire, in 1998 to help six families, now has licensed users as far away as Malta and New Zealand. The charity reckons that with 300 practitioners now trained, there is the potential to reach 1,800 families a year.

The intensive three-day licensed training course is open to professionals who have prior experience of working with people who are autistic.

Dr Jane Shields, director of the EarlyBird Centre, said, 'The feedback from parents across the UK has been pleasingly positive. We hope to further develop the scheme over the coming years to refine it and there are also still gaps on the map we would like to fill, so the work continues apace.' The three-month EarlyBird programme involves the development of multi-disciplinary teams of professionals. It aims to support parents in the period between diagnosis and school placement, help them facilitate their child's communication and assist them in establishing good practice in handling their child at an early age so as to pre-empt the development of inappropriate behaviours.

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