Case Studies

The staff at Currie Primary are committed to making a difference in the lives of their pupils. They felt almost overwhelmed by the challenge of equipping their staff with the knowledge and strategies required to support children with autism. We began by delivering a whole staff training morning exploring how Autism presents differently for girls and sharing how best to understand and support behaviour. The session also gave the staff space to have important conversations sharing best practice and co-ordinating strategies. Afterwards we were able to help Currie Primary support their schools community in a consistent way by delivering our four-part training programme on Autism.

Holywood Family Trust have a fantastic team of staff and volunteers with different levels of experience in supporting children with Autism or ADHD. They were hungry to develop their team knowing that it would lead to a better experience of their children whilst developing and retaining their volunteers. We provided a full day of training for counselors, youth club staff, youth club volunteers and outreach staff. We delivered training on Autism and ADHD and how to best support young people within a youth club setting.

They identified that they could benefit from further support during their youth clubs and a bespoke programme was developed for the children and young people HFT were supporting. This included a 6 week program working directly with their children teaching them about their brains and big emotions. We also ran workshops which gave their staff direction on how to talk about tricky topics and help equip the children and young people around these conversations.

HFT also sought our support to help their staff though training specifically on how to look after their own mental health when supporting children and young people with theirs. This workshop was a powerful session creating a space for the staff to discuss some challenging topics and a honest conversations. We’re looking forward to continuing to provide this workshop to them on a regular basis.

The work with HFT continues, providing workshops for their senior children and young people, looking at recreating spaces within their youth club to help provide an inclusive environment for neurodiverse and neurotypical children and young people.

With funding from Mencap several youth organisations in Carrickfergus came together to provide training for their staff. Their shared desire was to provide an inclusive environment for all their youth club attendees. Over two consecutive evenings with provided training on ADHD and Autism. They also had the brilliant idea of supporting these sessions through a question and answer panel where they received feedback from neurodiverse former youth club attendees.

The Tobin Centre, based in Moortown, Cookstown, sought our help in providing effective support for families in the surrounding areas. They provide a youth club for children with additional needs and we worked together to provide training for parents in the area. Over the past year we have delivered over 20 training sessions for parents and carers on a wide variety of topics. Staff also wanted guidance of how to support behaviour and create structure and routine within their youth club. After observations we spent 6 weeks providing tailored sessions, structure and timetables were provided and specific staff training.

Parentline serve parents and carers across Northern Ireland. Since then we have provided 12 webinars which make effective specialist support accessible across the province. Webinars have been delivered on ADHD, our 4 part Autism series and our popular 4-part ‘Parenting neurodiverse children’ course. We’ve recorded podcasts with Parentline NI which have been a vital resource to many parents, carers and professionals. You can find a link to our podcasts here.