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Description
The project focuses on helping families with children suffering from autism spectrum disorders. The
aim of the project is to involve members of disadvantaged groups in defending their needs and the
needs of their communities, helping people with disabilities to integrate into society, and making their
current needs visible and supporting them in designing solutions. The main attention will be paid to the
target group of families with children with autism, in which the child has reached more than 7 years of
age. At the moment, the family is losing the opportunity to use the early intervention.
Summary of project results
The main goal of the project was to create a methodology and other tools (e.g. the aforementioned website) that families caring for a member with an autism spectrum disorder could use to defend their rights in society. This was achieved and we are very happy that this work was successful thanks to the active participation of the families. Families have experienced that they can be active creators of their own destiny and pass this experience on. The truth is that at first we found it very difficult to activate families. The setting of parents was more in the role of recipient of help. We are convinced that our questionnaires, support interviews, presentation of options and constant attempts to engage in joint work were the impetus that moved parents from the position of receiving help to the position of active creators. We realize that this is a very small sample of the total number of disadvantaged families, but their example will show the way to others. We assume that dissemination of the methodology among organizations dealing with the support of these families will lead to an increase in this service in society and thus to an improvement in the quality of life in these families. It is not yet possible to evaluate from a time point of view how specifically our methodology will be used by these organizations, but the first reports and reactions to it are entirely positive.