Lack of support after autism diagnosis in North East
Parents say they need more help after children are diagnosed with autism
North East parents say they feel abandoned after their children ar diagnosed with autism.
It's as the National Autistic Society say they're under pressure - with volunteers helping around 1200 in our region at any time.
Helen Rutherford's from County Durham - her son Jacob was diagnosed when he was 6 years old, "I can remember the day we got his diagnosis, I went to see his clinician and she said: 'he's got a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder, here's a file full of papers about autism, get on with it."
"It was quite bittersweet,because you wanted to know the answer to the problem, but you didn't want the answer. You just wanted your child to be like any other child."
Louise Brown from County Durham's son Oliver was diagnosed with Aspergers aged 6, "After diagnois what I found was that it was quite a lonley place. You've got all of this information from all of the professionals and it was a case of there you go, that's what he's got, goodbye.
"There was nothing really out there to give you more information or to help you in any way. There was all these parents getting the diagnosis but then nothing after that."
Deborah Garland, manages the NAS office in the North East, she says she gets 80 enquiries ever week and they're dealin with more than 1200 families across the region, "we're a voluntary organisation and rely on funding and that's not nearly enough. I think the ideal situation would be for some government funding to be put into post diagnostic support for families.
"I think it's quite challenging really to be able to get the funding in to be able to provide the support we'd like to. We run parent training courses, various different things, but we'd like to be able to provide so much more."