Autism Awareness Week – helping our clients to live full lives
Autism Awareness Week – helping our clients to live full lives
It would be easy, given everything else that’s going on in the world, to overlook this year’s Autism Awareness Week.
But spreading awareness and increasing acceptance is important and here at Frontier, 85 percent of the people we support are on the Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD).
ASD affects social interaction, communication, interests and behaviour.
It is a lifelong developmental disability and it is much more common than people think; with around 700, 000 on the spectrum in the UK.
The majority of our clients with ASD, live singly in their own accommodation as they find it difficult to live and/or share with others. Some require 24-hour support whilst others need less. But we believe consistent support from our NAPPI UK- trained staff is essential for successful living with ASD.
At Frontier, we work with individuals in a very organised and pragmatic way ensuing they have as much control over their own lives as possible. And we build a structure with them that enables them to cope with day to day life.
Lee Elkin, Director of Practice at Frontier, said: “We recently supported someone in leaving a long hospital stay and moving into the community. They are now living in their own home with 24-hour support and accessing activities in the community – something they’ve never been able to do before. But now they are cycling, swimming and going to the park.
“And since Autism can also affect the way people see colour and hear noise, we have also worked on making their home a sanctuary by decorating it in neutral, non-alerting colours and asking our support workers to only wear clothing in calming colours like beige or grey.
“The house also has very few electrical devices so it remains as quiet as possible. And the furniture has been chosen to address our client’s proprioceptive and vestibular needs and the floor covering and furnishings are sound absorbent rather than sound reflective.”
At Frontier, we have an excellent track record in using positive behaviour support to transform the quality of a person’s life. With access to behavioural and managerial expertise we provide consistent support and have a positive track record in breaking the cycle where there has been a previous history of service breakdowns or hospital re-admissions.
This Autism Awareness Week, find out more how we support our clients who are on the Autism Spectrum Disorder visit here.