A couple of months ago Pyramid Consultant Grace volunteered at a summer school for autistic children. In this blog Grace describes her experience and what motivates her to volunteer. She also gives us an insight into what takes place in a typical day.
I have had the privilege to volunteer regularly throughout my career, with a variety of wonderful organisations and charities including FOCUS Liverpool and Blue Stars Autism Intervention. In August this year Pyramid Educational Consultants released me for two weeks so I could volunteer at a summer school which supports children with Autism Spectrum Disorder using principles of Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) run by Rainbow Behavioural Therapies.
A typical day at Summer School
Learners have at least three individual goals that are targeted across the sessions that they attend. These are focused on communication, socialisation and learning.
Every session begins with some pairing and preference assessments, this tells us what our learners are interested in today from the regularly available toys, games and activities. We brainstorm how we can fit the learners current targets into the preferred activities.
Since opportunities to target socialisation come less regularly than learning and communication targets there are regular group activities run through the day (minimum of one morning and afternoon group), usually focusing on the theme of the day. These are led by one volunteer whilst the others support learners 1:1.
A sensory activity is regularly offered, these have a list of possible targets that can be incorporated into the activity. Sensory activities tend to link to a theme like under the sea, in the forest or cars for example. They can get quite messy, so learners come up into small groups to access these activities across the day. Somehow, we also manage to fit in two snacks and lunch!
You may ask what the parents get up to in this time? Some organisations use this as respite for parents, so they leave for the duration of the session. Others may use the time to give support and information to the parents. Professionals such as solicitors, Occupational Therapists, behaviour analysts and Speech & Language Therapists hold information sessions. Other summer schools may use a parent model where the learners work with their 1:1’s for half the session and with their parent for the other half.
Why Volunteer?
Seeing learners begin to use their voice with different people, learn a new sign or master a new phase of PECS is just amazing! I will never
Watching learners develop new skills such as helping to tidy activities away, or independently structuring their own time is very rewarding. Likewise when learners use their new skills to be able to express more about who they are.
Over the years I have had the privilege to meet, listen to and train a lot of parents. To hear their struggles and successes is both heart-breaking and empowering. We can learn so much from parents, see what is important to their family, and how as someone working with their child your teaching needs to go beyond the classroom. Listening to parents highlighting their child’s amazing differences and seeing their empathy and love for them inspires me to empower families to get the help and support that they need.
Part of that is access to information about evidence-based teaching strategies and 1:1 support on how to implement effective teaching within family life. Many of the summer school’s I have volunteered at, have this set as one of their mission’s outcomes.
Could Volunteering Be for You?
As a volunteer you need to be open to working with lots of different learners. You also need to be flexible, able to think on your feet and have 
I have had the honour of meeting many amazing professionals who volunteer for a variety of reasons. Many have been able to use their volunteering experience to grow in fields such as behaviour analysis, speech and language therapy, educational psychology and teaching.
Volunteering at a project like a summer school for children with autism, means that you are supporting learners to navigate their own path through the world and supporting families through potentially difficult times. You are also supporting other professionals in becoming better skilled and experienced practitioners who are all working towards the same goal – learners leading happy and independent lives.
By Grace Payne, Pyramid Consultant
© Pyramid Educational Consultants 2021