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About Autism
Peer Education
Great Minds Together have been appointed by the NHS – Health Education England to deliver the first ever Peer Education Programme that treats the family as the workforce. The programme will support families, befriender’s, Personal Assistants and small independent care providers in order to ‘upskill’ the team around the family as part of an evidenced based programme to prevent escalation of mental health needs resulting in hospitalisation. This innovative programme sets out to provide a level of free education and support to families and professionals like no other; in order to ensure mental health comes first for autistic people. Great Minds Together have selected a small number of highly skilled partners and staff members in order to provide information for people across all walks of life, to include online training, CPD courses, interactive workshops, peer support groups and on-call support.
Live Q&A Events Playback
Jenny Loughran Q&A
There was a reference to the ‘SEND Code of Conduct’ in this video, however, this is now the ‘SEND Code of Practice’
Read More
There was reference to the Disability Discrimination Act, which has been replaced by the Equality Act 2010
Some systems and processes mentioned in this video are not nationally available and may be specific to the specific local authority. For example, the ‘Schools Advisory Service’ is not a service in a lot of Local Authorities.
Some helpful additional information in relation to Educational Psychology (EP) assessments: “9.49 SEND Code of Practice states advice from an EP must be sought as part of the EHCP assessment process. This means that while parents may struggle to access an EP assessment normally, if your request for an EHCP assessment is accepted, this will result in an EP assessment as it is required by law”
Emma & Meg from Great Minds Together
with Vikki Threlfall & Paula Webb from PDA Society
Emma and Meg talk about PDA with Vikki Threlfall and Paula Webb from PDA Society. They cover lots of topics including terminology around PDA, helpful approaches, differences between ODD & PDA, EHCPs, working with professionals, and more. Part 1 of 2
Andy - Spectrum Gaming
The first Q&A session with Andy from Spectrum Gaming. We talk about a range of things including the importance of language, and how important it is to work in partnership with parents and carers.
Join our peer support groups
Peer Educators
Introduction to PDA
An introductory video about PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance) This video is just over 20 minutes long and covers lots of information,
including: What is demand avoidance? PDA & Autism Key features of a PDA profile research & clinical themes Why identify PDA? How PDA can feel What are demands? Demand avoidance in PDA Helpful approaches Further information We hope this is a helpful introduction and helps to put PDA on everyone’s radar. Further information and our contact details are available on our website:
PDA Society
https://www.pdasociety.org.uk/
Emma Mander &
Meg Walls
Emma and Meg, co-founders of Great Minds Together, and leaders of this project talk about what is available to families
and professionals what is available to families and professionals that are supporting autistic people. They share a lot of resources and details of other services and support systems that are in place for people with autism and mental health needs.
Demand Avoidance of the PDA kind
A video created for PDA Day 2019 to help raise awareness of how the PDA profile of autism can present, combining experiences kindly shared by children, young people, and adults.
Joe Fautley
Joe Fautley speaks about growing up with autism and how he hasn’t let him hold him back. He also shares some helpful tips on how to manage stress and anxiety.
“Being able to de-stress is essential for autistic people. My favorite ways to relax includes visiting places of nature and when at home listening to nature sounds and calming music. For me personally managing fatigue can be a difficult process especially when I’ve had a stressful day. This can often be made worse because it happens suddenly.
When this happens I always need time to rest and adjust. However, if there are times when I do not have the opportunity to rest effectively I can become unwell.”
Become a Peer Educator
We welcome anybody that would like to contribute to this project, and will be constantly expanding the Peer Educators involved. To contribute please email [email protected]
Register for your FREE Autism Awareness CPD Course
You can find our past and upcoming events below
The Great Minds Podcast
Collecting ‘Great Minds’ to work together on our journey to help solve the SEND crisis for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities and/or social, emotional and mental health (SEMH) needs. We will be discussing how education and social care impact these children, young people and their families and sharing good practice on how we can make the system better with a variety of guest speakers including parents, professionals and children.
Upcoming Events
Interactive sessions with some of the industry’s experts and expert parents.
If you would like to submit a question before the event please email [email protected] and advise which event you are attending.
We will try to cover all questions on the day. All events will be listed within online Q&A.
may, 2022
Great Minds Together
Autism Peer Education
We are a multi-agency network.
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