A Taree mother has welcomed the launch of an online support group for people with disabilities and their parents, which sees interactive Zoom meetings between participants as well as support in Facebook groups.
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"As a parent with children with a disability, it's hard to find a group of people that you can connect with and bounce ideas off," said Maree Cheney.
"When they were little I was searching around for a support group and couldn't find one. This would have been ideal then."
Port Macquarie psychologist Narelle Henry started the group, named KEVRIA, in response to the coronavirus restrictions and the impact the lack of face to face contact was having on the wellbeing of her clients and their parents.
The program is for people on the Mid North Coast and the Far North Coast.
"I work with people with disabilities and complex difficulties, and what I've found with COVID-19 is that parents are more stressed," said Narelle.
"How do you homeschool a kid with ADHD or who is on the autism spectrum?
"Even for adults with disabilities, their daycare services have shutdown, and there are changes in their routine."
She decided to start regular Zoom meetings as a free service for her clients as a way to give back and now she wants more people to join in.
There is a Facebook link that you can request to join a particular group, or you can send messages to the Facebook page if you are interested in being involved.
"In the next few months I have plans to start a podcast to give a voice to people with disabilities and also create noise and agitation, but because of COVID-19 the need for the online support groups was more immediate."
The Zoom meetings are held once a fortnight and are separated into peer support age groups.
As for topics up for discussion, Narelle is being guided by the participants' interests and ideas of what to talk about and also plans on having guests attend some Zoom meetings in the future.
"It's a very self supporting group."
Narelle said she has found during her career that people with disabilities, when not one-on-one, can articulate themselves better when a group of people aren't in front of them.
Maree is part of the parent support group and her 21-year-old daughter Charlotte is part of one of the peer groups.
"We found out about it through Narelle, who has been supporting Charlotte through The Centre for Positive Behaviour Support."
She said there will be topics that come up that will be useful to her, but she feels her main role is more as a support for someone else.
"We've been through quite a lot of things and have experienced things where other people might be having trouble.
"We've found that having two children with disabilities can be a very isolating thing, depending on their behaviour.
"My son, who has a rare genetic disorder called Cornelia De Lange, had a lot of challenges when he was little.
"We found it difficult to go out and do things that other families can do. This is even more isolating."
Part of the parent support group Zoom meetings for about a month now, Maree said they generally talk about what is going on in their lives. "It would be great to have more people participating,"
Meetings are held in the morning and evening, to cater for people who work and give more people the ability to participate.
Maree also comes with educational knowledge from her work as a primary school teacher.
She said the feedback for Charlotte, who has high functioning autism, is that she is participating well.
"Narelle said Charlotte was able to make a valuable contribution to the meeting.
"I'm also happy for her to have a group of people possibly going through the same experience and where she can gain support."
Although The Centre for Positive Behaviour Support is through the NDIS, the Zoom meetings are an aside.
"There's no funding for it and Narelle is doing it after seeing the need. I think it's a great idea," Maree said.
