Sunbeams is a charity that supports children and young people with autism, their siblings, families, parents and carers by providing groups dedicated to siblings and young carers and regular respite sessions for all of its members.
One of Sunbeams main areas of work is to develop life & social skills, which help our children & young people towards independence as they transition in to adulthood. Sunbeams also likes to educate the local community about autism as well as build connections with local businesses to create safe and heavily supported work experience opportunities.
Many of our members struggle with their wellbeing as autism can make it difficult for them to understand the world around them as well as recognise their own emotions and share how they are feeling. Covid 19 has exacerbated their feelings of confusion and caused heightened anxiety and stress due to the unpredictable nature of lockdowns and isolations.
Currently Sunbeams offers a wellbeing support service through a qualified psycho-therapist who specialises in autism. This service provides one to one counselling, workshops, training and a listening ear.
Prior to the tremendous support of the Pixel Fund the training and well-being service Sunbeams offered centred more around family and parents or carers. With thanks to Pixel we are now able to focus our wellbeing service specifically towards our young people by targeting their emotional well-being, self-confidence and mental health. We are now able to provide a professional service specific to our young people targeting their emotional well-being, self-confidence and mental health. They will have access to counselling, workshops around anxiety and stress management, sleep, confidence and self esteem as well as a ‘Calm Kids’ program.
With Pixels support we aim is to improve mental health and wellbeing for children and young people and enable them to better understand and look after their own and their peers/siblings mental health and wellbeing.
Thank you Pixel for giving Sunbeams this wonderful opportunity to help build the confidence and development of our young peoples independence and resilience.