00:00-
Lorna: My name’s Lorna and I’ve got a five year old son called Jack.

00:05 -
Lorna: Jack was diagnosed with autistic spectrum disorder in 2018.

00:10 -
Lorna: Things came to a head really at the beginning of the last summer holidays. Jack doesn’t deal very well with change in routine. I was really concerned at that time and I didn’t really know what to do to try and support him.

00:23 -
Lorna: I saw an advert for the Navigate service online, we were struggling a bit as a family at the time so I clicked on the link to try and find out more. 

00:33:-
Bev: It’s a six session service for parents of disabled children. What we do is provide support for the parents, so emotional support especially as it’s for children who are on the pathway to a diagnosis or they’ve been diagnosed with a disability within the last year.

00:51:-
Bev- Lorna was struggling with the behaviour at home. A lot of these parents tuck themselves away.

They concentrate so much on their child who has so many additional needs, it takes over their life. 

Over the period of six weeks we spoke she made lots of decisions and I think it just helped having somebody she could speak to. 

1:16:-
Lorna: Bev gave me quite a lot of different types of support, she gave me some practical solutions. That was really helpful. But, also what I found the most important was that Bev gave me a space to talk about my needs.

1:30:-
Lorna: As a parent of a child with special needs, you spend so much time trying to work out what the child needs that you neglect yourself and actually Bev really reinforced that I needed to be ok in order to care for Jack.

So I thought maybe there might be slight changes, but the amount of change was that happened within that short period of time I would never have expected from any service if I’m honest.

1:58:-
Bev: It’s a fantastic service. Everybody who works on the service has some sort of lived experience. There is so little support out there for parents, sometimes they just need someone to talk to and we’re there to talk to you, we’re there to support you, and we’re there to listen, so please apply if you feel it’s for you. 

2:17:-
Text and Voice Over: Navigate is a six week one-to-one mentoring service, providing support for parents and carers of disabled children.

To find our more or apply visit scope.org.uk/navigate

Scope = Equality for disabled people.