Reaching Further with Reach4Reality

What Reaching Further with Reach4Reality did

Over the year we worked with 8 young people with autism involving them in outdoor activities tailored to their individual needs, building on work we had already done with them through our previous funding. 1:1 activities took place locally to Inverness, but group activities/camps took place at Abernethy Trust, Nethybridge. Activities included: skiing, mountain biking, gorge walking, team challenges. One young person took part in a canoe expedition on the River Spey, another joined us on a 5 day camp.

Over the summer we ran a series of 5 evening sessions for small groups of young people with autism in the following activities: indoor climbing (Glenmore Lodge), canoeing (Loch Morlich), foundation trail cycling (trails around Inverness), mountain biking (local trails). We also ran a skiing day on the dry ski slope at Abernethy Trust, Nethybridge and 3 climbing days on local crags. Priority was given to new young people or young people with autism without any other access to outdoor activities.

In October we ran a trial weekend family camp at Abernethy Trust, Nethybridge for 3 girls with autism plus a family member. They did activities separately, but met up for mealtimes and social times. As this was a trial they were already known to us.

As a trial from September we ran the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme for 9 young people (8 doing Bronze, 1 doing Silver). As this was a trial they were already known to us.

Other than the family camp, we did not work directly with carers. While young people took part in our activities, carers were able to spend more time with other family members, as well as resting or relaxing. The project addressed, to varying degrees, all of the Better Breaks priority areas apart from breaks for very young disabled children or a new short break service. On the whole the project went to plan.

What Reach4Reality has learned

Project planning and budgeting: In planning our project and especially the budget for it, it can be difficult to do this accurately mainly because of the individual nature of our service to the young people, but also because there were several different components of the project. However, despite this, our overall planning and budgeting at the start of the project were reflected well in our end of project budget/expenditure and outcomes which is encouraging.

Developing new short breaks activities: Pilot Family camp, from running our pilot family camp we learnt a lot about how the young people and family members can benefit from such a camp. For example, that for the young people it can be a step in their building confidence to stay away from home, that they can gain a sense of pride and achievement from being able to do activities which their family member was not able to do. For the family members that they can gain an insight into what our activities and camps are like (and so have greater awareness and confidence in us as an organisation) as well as an appreciation of what their young person can achieve through their activities with us.

We also gained a greater awareness of some of the issues the families/young people face, for example the lack of suitable education provision locally for the young people who cannot cope in mainstream education but for whom there is no alternative special education.

Pilot Duke of Edinburgh scheme: Through piloting the Duke of Edinburgh scheme for a small number of young people, the main thing we have learnt is that with the right level of support, the young people can gain a great sense of achievement through working towards their Duke of Edinburgh award. Although the amount of time and extra support they need is much higher than others, the benefits are also perhaps much higher, because they have had to invest so much more in achieving the different sections of the award.

As already indicated, we are still learning from this part of the project as we are training and supporting the participants towards their Bronze canoe expedition.