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Charlie is four and autistic, with significant additional needs and global developmental delay. His mum shares how Kids Beverley Play Group helped her feel less overwhelmed and gave Charlie a safe and welcoming place to be himself.
“Charlie is four and is autistic with significant additional needs and global developmental delay. Charlie is pre-verbal and needs a high level of support with his communication, sensory needs and everyday life. As a family, we’ve had to learn a whole new world of SEND, which was particularly overwhelming at the beginning when we didn’t know what support was available or where to turn.
“When we first started to realise that Charlie was developing differently, everything was very new to us. I knew very little about autism or SEND at the time, and suddenly there was so much to understand, different services to navigate and lots of uncertainty about what Charlie needed and how best to support him.”
“Kids has helped us enormously. I first attended the Beverley Play Group when I was still very new to the world of autism and SEND and, at the time, I didn’t really know where to turn or what support was available.
“The staff had so much knowledge and information and were always happy to answer my questions, point me towards services and help me understand what support Charlie might need. Having people who understood what we were going through made what was quite an overwhelming time feel much less daunting.
“It was also a safe and welcoming place for Charlie where he could completely be himself, and I never felt that I needed to explain or apologise for his differences.”
“I think groups like this are incredibly important, especially for families who are right at the beginning of their SEND journey. You can suddenly find yourself in a world you know nothing about, and it can feel very overwhelming and isolating.
“For me, it wasn’t just a play group for Charlie. It was somewhere I could meet other parents who understood, learn from people with experience and feel like we weren’t navigating everything alone.
“I’ll always be grateful that Kids was there for us at a time when I really needed that support.”
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