Our eldest son was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder at the age of 18 months. I know personally that it is a huge struggle for any parents/families with children who have special needs, but families of Autistic individuals really struggle in my opinion due to the lack of publicly available funds for any ongoing intervention, especially during adulthood.
Although there is some financial support, and educational support for children diagnosed with Autism, but only for families with severely affected children who qualify for government funding. Many families are in the ‘in between’ category, where their child is not severe enough to qualify for funding, yet are struggling to do well, and behave well/function in a normal environment.
Some families are blessed to be in financial position that they are able to fund ongoing care and support – both at school and at home for their child, to help them transition into a mainstream school, but a number of families I have been in contact with, who have either children or adults in the family who have autism, really struggle with any structured, ongoing, support due to the lack of public funding.
Our aim at the Christian Autism Trust is to get in touch with those parents and show them that:
A.
There is ongoing, behavioural, evidence-based therapy that is available to them, ie. Applied Behavioural Analysis Therapy, which is the most common, successful, and widely available intervention currently in practice in the USA today.
B.
The costs of this therapy is enormous, and as there is no public funding. We hope the Trust can solicit donations from like-minded individuals and businesses, who can help these parents (financially) fund this type of behavioural intervention. This will be assessed on a case by case basis.