Empowering Parents

We all want to be great parents, but sometimes achieving that goal is harder than we’d like. Children with autism and similar issues often find it difficult to make friends, and many of their parents struggle with helping their kids establish meaningful relationships.

In November RMHS partnered with Connect Us to present a workshop on “Raising Socially Connected Kids.” This two-day class was targeted to parents of children with high functioning autism, ADHD, Sensory Integration Dysfunction and similar challenges. A month after the workshop, parents re-convened to talk about strategies they had used, troubleshoot issues together, learn from each other what worked, and discuss next steps. In order to accommodate family schedules, all classes were held on a weekend, and children were invited to participate in fun, collaborative activities while their parents attended the workshop.

The result? The 24 parents in attendance used words like “life-changing,” “mind-blowing,” and “breathtaking” to describe their experience. Every parent who provided feedback indicated that he or she learned strategies and techniques that they want to try at home. And when asked to rate the helpfulness of the training on a scale of 1 to 5 (1= minimally helpful and 5=extremely helpful), parents gave the workshop an average score of 4.5.

Thank you to the Denver community whose tax dollars made this important training possible!