Reaching Further with Reach4Reality: Continuing to Extend our Reach

What Reaching Further with Reach4Reality: Continuing to Extend our Reach did

We worked with 8 young people with ASD who were not able to access SDS: All 8 were already known to us. This involved regular 1:1 activities & longer small group activities, depending on the confidence and needs of the individual. Activities took place outdoors locally to the young people or at local outdoor centres. We supported four young people with their Gold DofE Award, one on her Silver and two on their Bronze awards. Two of the Gold participants completed their Gold practice and qualifying expeditions and a 5 day residential last summer and have almost completed their remaining sections. A third Gold participant completed the practice expedition but was unable to do the qualifying expedition due to illness. The forth withdrew due to a change in circumstances.

We ran a Family camp in February 2022 at Allt Na Criche, Aviemore. Six young people and eight family members were due to come for all or part of the weekend, supported by R4R staff and volunteers. Two families cancelled at short notice due to family difficulties; a third decided not to travel in the snowy conditions. The snow meant a change of activities but everyone enjoyed the winter walk, the zipwire, indoor climbing, archery and sledging! Eight other family members joined their young person for part of our other residential camps.

During the summer 2021 we ran four evening sessions for 2-5 young people in each of the following activities: foundation trail biking, mountain biking, archery, canoeing. It was great to see the improvement in skills and confidence of those progressing from the trail to the mountain biking. These sessions were for new young people/those on our waiting list. Over the winter months we ran 20 weekly badminton sessions for three autistic young people.
We ran four full and 42 half day activities in a range of outdoor activities in the Easter/summer holidays: 33 young people joined us for at least one of these.

Other than camps including family members, we did not work directly with the carers but they were able to spend quality time with other family members/friends or enjoy their own leisure activity. Priorities addressed were complex needs, sports and active leisure, transition to adulthood and independence.

What Reach4Reality has learned

Reaching out to and engaging with new families:

Our funding has enabled us to employ an extra member of staff to start working with some of the young people on our waiting list. This has been invaluable, but it has also highlighted to us how what we provide through the project, and with our other work, just really touches the tip of the iceberg. As soon as we start working with a new young person from the waiting list, another one replaces them on the list! It also again emphasises the importance of being able to offer flexible and personalised activities. Some new young people are able to build up quickly to an overnight stay, others need a much more gradual approach. We were again reminded of how evening activities can be a good way of new young people building up confidence with us to start with.

Developing new short breaks:

After the success of our trial at running half day/day activities during the summer holidays 2020, running half day activities during the 2021 Easter holidays and a fuller programme of half day/half-day activities in the summer of 2021 presented further opportunities for learning both in terms of how to manage the logistics of the programme, coping with the inclement weather (snow, sleet, hail) the pressure on our own instructing staff but also the balance and mix of half day/half-day activities. For future Easter activities we would continue to provide just half day activities so young people are not exposed to the potentially inclement weather for a full day, without our own outdoor base, even sheltering under a gazebo will not offer full protection. For the summer activities, some families have said that a full day would offer them greater respite and time to do more outside their caring role. We will therefore aim to provide a greater mix of day/half-days.

Dealing with unexpected challenges or opportunities:

Although not totally unexpected, one of the biggest challenges of running the half-day/full day activities during the Easter/Summer holidays was the logistical issues regarding transport to get the young people to activities (living in a large rural area where not all families have their own transport plus we were still working on one young person/car) and transporting all the necessary activity equipment (canoe and bike trailers, archery equipment). We were able to hire a minibus for some of the activities during the summer holidays which eased this slightly, but it also highlighted to us the need for us to find ways of acquiring our own vehicle rather than relying on staff or volunteer cars.

We have been continually amazed at most of our young people’s capacity for developing resilience, whether it be coping with driving sleet on activities or with extreme tiredness on the four day Gold DofE expedition. We have also seen how many of them have been able to adapt to change despite their autism, as long as they have been adequately prepared for the change. For example those that have stayed with us at Badaguish lodges have coped well with the change of venue and all that has entailed. Some have said that they preferred it there as it felt more relaxed not having to be ready by a certain time for the external Instructors coming to run the activities. We are building on this for future weekend camps and developing more of a varied mix of camps to be able to cater more for individual preferences.

How Reach4Reality has benefitted from the funding

Reach4Reality has benefitted from the Better Breaks funding in the following ways: It has enabled us to start working with new young people who were on our waiting list, through employing an extra sessional worker as well as extending current staff hours/capacity. The new sessional worker is a qualified outdoor instructor, previously working at one of the outdoor centres we regularly went to: an indirect consequence has been that we have been able to use his skills as a freelance instructor too. Although we had run a trial of several half day/day activities during the summer of 2020, through our Better Breaks funding we were able to extend this to the Easter holidays as well as the summer holidays. These have now become an established aspect of our ongoing work as well as bringing in additional income. All aspects of the project have helped to build our skills, knowledge, capacity and experience as well as helping to strengthen our reputation locally as we have continued to develop and grow over recent years.