Perhaps the children always stay with you throughout the service each week at your church or perhaps it's once a month for the family service or maybe the children are taken to their groups from the beginning or part way through the service and they are not with their parents/carers at all. Whatever way your church operates at some point in church life they may be expected to be with you during the service and knowing how to help those who naturally struggle with surrounding

I cannot emphasise enough the importance of good quality training in helping your volunteers to have understanding and empathy when looking after children with autism. The children's worker can have a massive impact on whether the child with autism will stay in the church setting. It can impact whether the family will stay at the church, how they feel welcomed or if they will leave and feel rejected. Whilst an overview of autism can help understanding, knowing how this can

The church is more than just the building, as I wrote previously about creating a culture of acceptance. This time, I want to focus on the building. Whilst it would be great to add on a calm down/sensory rooms, lighting, sound boards to create less echo etc I understand this is not possible. Some of our places of worship are centuries old, or meetings could happen in a rented space where there is no control over fixtures. I'm not suggesting physical changes but there are a

First and Then Card Visual As I have spoken about previously here, we also used a First and Then card. This was a visual to help our children cope with a task they found particularly hard or we would use to try and get the next task done quickly/avoid meltdown. Once they completed the First, they could have the Then (the motivator). The Then side could change as many times as necessary but the First card could not, until it was achieved. This is how we used visuals and ro

Being a mother of children with autism sometimes means I am operating on very little energy, strength, sleep and grace. I know people generally mean well and want to help or empathise but sometimes in the back of my mind, I'm thinking - did you really say that aloud? Yes I'm a christian and I do try to be graceful to others but please think about the comments you make, even those said with the greatest of intention can hurt. So I've put together a list of comments I've expe