Natural supports are needed by everyone, not only children with Autism.
(prHWY.com) June 5, 2012 - Georgia, GA -- Alpharetta, Georgia June 05, 2012 - Natural supports are needed by everyone, not only children with Autism. Parents of children with disabilities do not think in terms of 'supports and services'. They are busy raising children, going to doctors and therapies, dealing with the school. Oh yeah, and it might be nice to get to work now and then.
If parents of children are not paying attention they can become more and more isolated. This isolation is part of what leads to not developing supports. Then when the family is ready for someone to help with their child with Autism it is more complicated.
Natural supports are part of what makes life interesting. A support might be a friend or neighbor. It could be a co-worker or someone involved with an organization you might volunteer to help. It is someone who could or might be able to help you if you needed it.
I finally come to terms with it by thinking of other reasons a family might have people in their home. Particularly I thought of people who are staff in some way.
I could come up with housekeepers, groundskeepers, pool men, repair people, etc. Even though I could not afford any of these services I knew other people might.
Once I could think of someone like a housekeeper and compare it to my situation that helped. I also convinced the provider company to hire people I knew at first.
Since support people come and go over the life time of a child with Autism, all of the original people have long gone on to other things. Then I would go back to my 'housekeeper' strategy.
I heard one definition of a natural support that asked, "How many people do you know who could and would be at your house in 30 minutes?" Another definition asked, "Which of the people you know, would bring you soup and juice if you were sick?"
Autism Services - Either of these questions are good starting points. Natural supports are needed to make life interesting and keep us connected with the people and world around us. A natural support might call when our child is someplace unusual or a natural support might report on seeing our child and a paid support in the community. Either one of those is a priceless service when you have a child with Autism.
About the Author:
Autism Services - Maximum Potential had developed a video based training program that enables school systems, parents and therapists with the ability to learn the skills necessary to provide ABA Therapy to their students and children. Our program was developed by two PhD BCBA's with over 25 years combined experience in both private and school settings.
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