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| Version | User | Scope of changes |
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| May 21 2009, 7:07 AM EDT (current) | abancroft1 | 15 words added |
| May 21 2009, 7:03 AM EDT | abancroft1 | 13 words added, 77 words deleted |
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London - January 2009
It doesn’t seem very long ago that I decided to take part in the Son-Rise program with Jack; at first I had a few worries. How would we raise enough funds to take part in the program? How will we make his playroom? Son-Rise seemed a million miles away and being based in America when we are in Wigan (Greater Manchester) made me all the more nervous. I never expected that just 10 months down the line we would have raised nearly £18’000.00 and with all the special people we met along the way it wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it would be, we’ve had a great time!
From the minute I contacted Son-Rise to express an interest, any doubts I had disappeared. They sent out an information pack with DVD’s to watch other families’ experiences and I could relate to each one. I was introduced to a lady called Lori from Son-Rise who has been a tremendous support to our family, keeping in regular contact via email and telephone and the fact that she was in America just wasn’t an issue.
Jack has recently got a new Learning Support Assistant in school (Cath Balmer) and she has a brilliant relationship with him, I asked if Cath would like to come along to the training with me and without hesitation she said she would love to come. (Thanks to Mrs Parkinson for giving her permission)
Lori helped us prepare for the Start Up Program, and told us to apply to the Caudwell Children for funding, I’m so glad we did because Caudwell very kindly paid 80% of the costs for both myself and Cath.
Before we knew it, it was 25th January and we travelled to London for the first round of training at the Start Up program. Jack spent the week with Grandma & Grandad and had a fantastic time, and after all my worrying and thinking he would be distraught because his routine had changed, he had no problems at all. In fact he slept all night every night in his own bed!!!! I could have cried!
We arrived bright and early at Glaziers Hall on the Monday morning along with 222 other people all with the same goal to help their special children.
Out of the 224 people there in total there were parents, volunteers, and professionals from all over the world, and what were a group of strangers at the beginning of the week became good friends by Friday. Son-Rise staff were on hand at the course and Son-Rise volunteers made up of parents who had already done the program with their children and wanted to help other families just like themselves, they were all superb.
Bryn N. Hogan (Executive Director of the Autism Treatment Center of America) and William Hogan (Senior Teacher and Senior Trainer at the Autism Treatment Center of America) were our teachers for the week; they are the daughter and son-in-law of Barry Neil Kaufman and Samahria Lyte Kaufman who originally developed the Son-Rise Program for their son. They also have another special bond with the program as they adopted a child who was later diagnosed as autistic, they worked with their daughter using the Son-Rise principles and she too has now fully recovered.
Bryn and William are an absolutely amazing couple, this was the only training course I have ever attended where it wasn’t read from a PowerPoint presentation, they didn’t need any of that because they really spoke from the heart and you could tell they had so much passion for helping our special children. They made everything easy to understand and it all just made so much sense. There was plenty of opportunity to ask questions and there wasn’t any question that they couldn’t answer.
They taught us the Son-Rise techniques were the primary focus is on socialisation and building a relationship with the child, we were taught ways to adjust our attitude to achieve ultimate results and ways that we can recruit and train other people who can share this amazing experience of helping our special little boy.
The Son-Rise principles are based on love and acceptance and a non judgemental attitude so everything about it just feels right. I have looked at various other interventions for Jack and they all involve trying to stop him doing what he enjoys doing and make him do what is socially acceptable, and it all seems like a constant battle, I really don’t want a relationship like that with my little boy so Son-Rise is perfect for us.
The week absolutely flew by, we learnt so much and I can’t wait to start playing in Jack’s playroom putting all our techniques into practice. We now have to start recruiting and training volunteers to work with Jack.
My dad has started preparing Jack’s playroom, we have switched the bedrooms around so Jack can have a bigger room to play in and he will have the smaller room as his bedroom, Grandad has worked really hard for us the past few weeks along with Uncle David too so it won’t be long till his playroom is up and running and we can start making a difference.
My only regret in all of this is that I didn’t start Son-Rise sooner, it was nowhere near as difficult to get here as I imagined in fact it was really easy! I want to thank everybody concerned for helping us get to where we are today.
Son-Rise
The Miracle Continues ..…………………………..
