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9.1 Local groups
9.2 Chat Rooms
New support for parents/families. Sallyanne Withers has opened a chat room for families of Autistic children on the internet. here is her descrition of the site, which was forwarded to Haringey Autism by the NAS. The site " will hopefully be world wide, allowing people to gain confidence, make new friends, and offer and request advice and support when they feel they need it. The room is not just for people who wish to chat, but also offers advice boards, where people can just say hi, or ask for advice or offer their help to others who need it. I am a single mum of two children, aged 11 and 9, my 9 year old is names Liam and has Aspergers and Tourettes syndrome. He spent two years out of school being home educated by myself, when his primary school could not manage his behaviours despite him being statemented with full time hours. I had a huge fight for many years to get my child appropriate recognition for his difficulties, but with determination and a fight, he now is recognised and recieveing follow up care from proffesionals. Liam now has had a change of schools and is accessing mainstream education full time, with a statement of special educational needs in place and a full time helper. I spent a long time being actively involved with the Lincolnshire ADHD support group, and have done many voulantary roles over the years. I gained an A level in Psychology, and have recently helped to set up childrens football in the community for children with disabilities. I was raised by my parents who undertook the role as full time foster carers to 67 children during my years living at home. I now teach in an EBD special needs school in Lincolnshire, catering for the needs of severly behavioural challenging children, those with emotional disturbances, and also those with Aspergers Syndrome and related contitions. I have just spent several months working there with an Aspergers child aged 8 yrs, and am now moving on to other children in the school setting. I have experience with Statements, education, IEP's, reviews, tribunals, medication, diagnostic proceedures, support, etc etc. I feel the need for an evening online chat room is way overdue, and would like for you to ask anyone intersested if they would like to join. The room will be open nightly, and monitored. There are rules to the room, and anyone violating these rules can be banned. Once the room is running, i would like to extend my ideas and open the room one evenign a week for the children themselves to speak, allowing them the freedom to express their concerns and worries without being onlooked by their carers, and also just for them to make new friends. This is a secure sight, and again, the night the children will be allowed in WILL be monitored carefully, allowing it to run as successfully as possible. Another idea, will be to involve the siblings of these children, maybe extending the childrens night to an hour or so for their brothers/sisters to talk, as we all know that all concerned within the family are valuable. The room is open for all to attend, teachers, parents, aunts uncles, and grandparents, proffesionals, carers, and helpers. Please post this to all you feel would benefit from this service, they just need to go to this website http://groups.msn.com/Autism-FamilysOfChildren/chat.msnw and apply to join. Once applied they will be approved within days and then allowed into the room to see the boards or chat in the room. The room will be open from Friday 16th April 2004 from 8 pm each night. Thank you for your time, and please do not hesitate to contact me if you need to discuss any of the above. Sallyanne Withers... Room Manager."