Welcome to The Parent’s Portal
An interactive 24/7 community of support, resources and guidance.
Wherever you are on your journey, the portal will help you with what you need to know and when you need to know it.
Now free for Buckinghamshire residents – register here.
The Parent’s Portal – Take a tour
The Parent’s Portal by Autism Early Support has been designed for parents who:
have an autistic child or children
recognise differences in their child and they are exploring neurodivergence
Membership gives you unlimited access to a huge bank of resources for parents with children age 2-17 years.
Access great content, live and on-demand when it suits you
Resources to watch and read
A mutli-media library of information available to view and download
Live workshops and parent support groups
Interactive sessions on key topics, bookable in advance
Discussion Forums
Exchange ideas and perspectives with parents and practitioners
For a taster of what the Portal offers, check out some of our Bitesize content
New this Month
Guest Webinar Recording: Laura Hellfeld What you need to know abolut medications
In this webinar, Laura reviews general information about medications and also looks at some of the most commonly discussed and prescribed medications in the Autistic community
Webinar Recording: Communication at Mealtimes
This recorded workshop explores ways to support communication during mealtimes such as using AAC at mealtimes and to support discussions when mealtimes and food may be tricky.
Upcoming speakers
04/12/2024
Liz Wilson
Communication at Christmas and other winter festivals
16/12/2024
Jenny Hammond
Introduction to Supporting Sleep
Come along to discuss all things sleep related for early years or primary age children, share ideas and have support to find out more on the portal.
09/12/2024
Louise O’Connor-Boyd
Parent Support Group
An opportunity for you all to come online and chat! We are on hand to help, support and advise, but the main benefit is for you to share experiences.
25/01/2025
Chris Bailey
Neurodivergent Literacies
Chris will be using literacy as a platform to start thinking about autism and parenting autistic children.
Julie Smith
Supporting sensory differences through festivals
Explore some of the barriers, consider adjustments that can be made to the to the environment and introduce supports that could be helpful.
The Parent’s Portal by Autism Early Support is the result of our team having worked with autistic children and listened to the needs of their parents since 2001.
Parents have told us that to fully understand and support their child, the rest of their family and themselves they need:
- Consistent, reliable and up to date information supporting their child’s journey through their school, home and social life
- Guidance on funding, EHCPs & the SEN process
- Easy to read, bite-size advice because they are time-poor
- Strategies and tactics they can try at home and share with other family members
- To feel less alone and less isolated and to feel other people understand
- Peer support, where they can connect with other parents and offer help and support to one another.
In response, we have created a one-stop solution here in The Portal. The content has been created to save parents time and provide reliable, trusted guidance from our experienced practitioners and other parents.
One of The Portal’s unique features is that it’s a membership service where everyone signs up to become part of a community where support and guidance can be exchanged in a safe, non-judgmental space.
“Our Parent’s Portal is the product of our continued efforts to address parent’s concerns in a format that’s easy to use and solution-based. We know parents are time-poor and that they need clear practical advice and a supportive, listening ear. The Portal offers all of this, plus it’s been designed to continually evolve in line with parents’ needs.”
Laura Gomersall, Head of Children’s Services & Speech & Language Therapist at Autism Early Support.
Why put your trust in Autism Early Support?
We are a UK registered charity established in 2001. Since then we have worked with 100’s of autistic children and their families. We use specialist autism education and therapies with the children and we work with their families to offer practical support and advice on their child’s needs.
The well-being & happiness of each child is always our priority, so we encourage everyone to look through their lens first. Our guidance centres on understanding and appreciating the child’s perspective, ways to accommodate each child’s needs and use their skills and strengths to enable them to thrive, learn and develop.
Parent support is a critical part of our service. We have seen that through guidance and peer support, by enhancing parents’ knowledge they are more able to advocate for their child’s needs and differences and support the overall well-being of their family.
The Portal creators are our multi-disciplinary team of teachers and therapists. Having listened to parents’ needs, guidance from autistic researchers and through direct learning from the children themselves our combined knowledge has been used to curate The Parent’s Portal.
