Hi I’m Alison and I work for the National Autistic Society Scotland. I am an Information Officer for Highland which means I can help parents and carers (and the professionals who support them) with information about autism before and after diagnosis. It might be someone looking some specific advice or just a general chat, if I can’t help myself I’ll always try and signpost on to other services who can help.

Change of any kind can be very hard for autistic children and young people but it can be helped by using visual supports and by things such as social stories. We’ve got lots of great information on our NAS website, for example:

https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/topics/behaviour/dealing-with-change/all-audiences

Part of my job is looking after our wonderful library at the Pines. I am building up our collection of bereavement resources as I think this is such an important issue to support. The library is not open due to Covid but you can search the library to give you examples of books you might try: https://www.librarycat.org/lib/ThePinesLibrary

Often children’s books are available on YouTube being read as stories which is a great (and free!) way of accessing them.

I can suggest lots of other resources so do get in touch if I can help.

My favourite resource? Wow there are so many I’ll have to choose two:

• This booklet from the charity See-Saw has some great photos to support a child at a funeral, it would be good for a visual learner to understand what might happen: https://clbhighlandhome.files.wordpress.com/2021/02/seesaw-funeral-book-smallest.pdf

• And finally this short video from Child Bereavement UK has excellent advice to support an autistic child: https://www.childbereavementuk.org/supporting-a-bereaved-child-with-autism-spectrum-disorder

Just get in touch if I can help: highland.informationofficer@nas.org.uk