AUTISM awareness month is wrapping up and the Griffith autism support group are making sure the city’s parents know exactly what services are available.
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On Friday the group was joined by other services throughout the community for an autism awareness day to promote the services available to families and adults dealing with autism.
Griffith autism support group member Kristy Valenzisi said as a mother of a child with mild autism she could not emphasise how important autism awareness and support was.
“It’s good to get parents in the same situation together so they can talk to each other because we need to get more people aware of what children with autism are capable of achieving,” she said.
“But we also need to have more people aware of autism itself, often people don’t understand what it is and they just assume a child just is badly behaved so letting people know that this is an issue is so important because they often just don’t realise. People also don’t think they qualify for support so day’s like this are really great.”
Organiser of Friday’s event Dene Beltrame said the day was focused on providing support. “There are a lot of families who are unaware of the local services available and who think they have to travel to metropolitan areas to access support systems,” she said.
“Each service will discuss what area they look after to help kids on the spectrum achieve their full potential so they can learn social skills and communication skills and how to cope with everyday life.”
Assistant Principal of learning and support based at Leeton High School Julianne Angel said the day was a great opportunity for Griffith families and professionals to familiarise themselves with the services available. “It can be hard things can all change depending on government grants and so that’s what makes days like these really great. I’ll have meeting with new parents if there is sometimes a bit of a problem and so it’s important I know what services to get involved or that are available to tell them, so in organising this Jene is a really big asset, having people like her is a really good for our city.”