Fresh Hope projects

Project Module 1: Play project

Children with Autism are socially isolated. They need to learn how to play and interact in safe and controlled ways. The Autism Treatment Trust structured play project will bring small groups of children with Autism together to help them to develop play skills. At the same time, parents will enhance their skills through watching the sessions and through discussion. Each set of 10 sessions will be videoed and subsequently analysed as part of our developing research and monitoring support into the effectiveness of the work we carry out at our Stafford Street clinic.

Project Module 2: Financial support to families

This projects aims at getting funding to assist parents access to biomedical testing, treatment and advice on education, behaviour, communication and learning.

Project Module 3: Music therapy

Children with Autism, like any other children, love to be stimulated and enjoy discovering how different instruments make different sounds. Music can assist communication and the perception and expression of emotions. ATT will offer our children weekly sessions of music therapy using a wide variety of percussion instruments. The sessions will be run initially on a 1:1 basis to be gradually extended to small group sessions with a music therapist from Nordoff Robins accompanied by our psychologist, principal scientist and two assistants.

Project Module 4: Volunteer Training

We want to develop the skills, understanding and practice in working, coordinating and managing volunteers. We will set up a career development plan for each volunteer and monitor their progress. We will also provide training support for our Volunteer Manager and ultimately hope to achieve a Quality Award in volunteer management. This will help us to recruit and retain volunteers, which is critical to our clinic.

Project Module 5: Administrator

Autism Treatment Trust is dependent on volunteers for the day-to-day running of the clinic. We are very fortunate to have a team of four dedicated volunteers. As each volunteer comes in twice a week for half a day, there is limited continuity on the administrative side. Currently our experts take on a great deal of this administrative work on top of their own work load. Funding for an administrator will allow our experts to concentrate on the important work of treating autistic children.

Project Module 6: “Friends of ATT”

Children with Autism and their families are socially isolated. The children need to learn how to socialise, play and interact in safe and controlled ways and their parents need opportunities to socialise. The Friends of ATT project will offer parents the opportunity to bring their children to the clinic one morning a month for supported play and interaction in a social setting and one evening a month for parents only to share their experiences and get some support and advice. The morning sessions will allow the parents to watch and be involved in observing our psychologist and her assistants interact and engage with the children. Coffee and tea will be provided and at all times the parents can observe their children through the CCTV camera. The evening groups will be a combination of social and informative events with visiting specialists, from dieticians to music therapists, being invited to give short talks.

Project Module 7: Education Tools and Assessment Equipment

A large part of the work that we do in treating Autistic children is carried out through the use of play. Many of our children are either non-verbal or have very limited speech. We use play to establish a relationship with the child with the aim of evaluating some key issues of development, communication, play and behaviour. Children with autism are rarely exposed to situations where the sole objective is the teaching of play, despite the opportunities this represents for their development. This constitutes a significant gap in most educational approaches in autism. Play, like any other skill, can be taught and this is also true for children with autism.