CAAS supports, educates and empowers individuals with ADHD or who are autistic, their families, and the community. Through raising awareness we change perceptions and break down barriers. We do this through a range of services such as specialist courses and training, support groups, and individual support and mentoring. We provide services for families in Harrow, Brent and Hillingdon, and across NorthWest London for autistic adults.
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CAAS mission is to support, educate and empower ADHD/autistic individuals, their families and the wider community. We do this through a (current) range of 40 different services such as individual support, drop-in support groups, specialist psychoeducational parenting courses and workshops, youth courses, adult support, counselling, drama therapy and a range of social/therapeutic groups for both young people and adults.
At least 700,000 autistic people currently live in the UK, around 1% of the population. This equates to over 21,000 autistic people in North West London, so there is a huge demand for our service.
Key factors involved in how successful an autistic individual will be are the support structures around them (in terms of family and school/employment/health) and the autistic individual understanding their autistic strengths and differences, allowing them to build resilience. The services we provide aim to focus on early intervention to alleviate the pressure on mental health services and reduce social services intervention. In addition, we are keen to empower our clients so that more of our groups become user-led.
One of our service users says, "This highly experienced and educated CAAS team has provided me with a Rolls Royce of service for the past seven years. Being fully inclusive, from the beginning, I was made to feel welcomed and supported. From providing emotional support, allowing me to attend informative, professional courses, teaching me to navigate his medical care and certain welfare services, twice-weekly drop-in social coffee mornings and accompanying me to schools to help advocate in dealing with unknowledgeable and uninterested staff; Nothing was too much trouble for the team. Having no prior experience of ADHD/Autism, having been given the tools to help me understand these conditions has enabled me to transform my unhappy struggling son into a loving thriving young man. I am now looking forward to availing of the adult services which I envisage will be just as good."