Where can parents of children with special needs get support?

 Happy October! Did you know that October is Downs Syndrome awareness month? It's something I'm always very aware of but don't shout about it too much and have slowly moved away from the posts about Downs Syndrome on here, however with it being October, I thought I would do a few posts about special needs and Downs Syndrome this month. 

For my first post in October, I wanted to talk about where as parents of children with special needs can get support.

Parenting, no matter how many children you have or how much you have researched and prepared, need support. It's not something to be ashamed of. It's just a fact because, lets face it, parenting is hard. 

Being a parent of a child with special needs is no exception, so where can you go to get the support you need?

First of all lets look at what kind of support you might need;

• speech and language
• behaviour issues
• hearing or sight issues. 
• toilet training
• learning difficulties or delays with learning/hitting milestones
• difficulties bonding with your child
• difficulties adjusting or accepting your child's diagnosis

 These are all acceptable reasons to need support and I have struggled with each one of these at one point or  another in my parenting journey so far. I'm sure there will be others that pop up as time goes on. 

So when you are struggling, where do you turn to? Here are some of the places we have found to be the biggest support for us. 

• school/childcare placement SENCO
• GP 
• local authority
• other special needs parents - either in person, in online forums or social network groups. 
• Charities
• Portage worker. 

Please let me know if you can think of any other places that parents can turn to to get the support they need