Darlington charity offers support to people with autism and families
A new website has been launched with all you need to know
A Darlington charity is offering support to families of people with autism especially youngsters.
Saint John Of God Hospitaller says there needs to more awareness around the suicide risks of neurodivergent individuals.
Its new website, called Here To Help, which has launched today, is for people with autism, parents, carers and professionals.
Rachael Smith, service manager for the project, said: "One of the things that we've found a need for is one place where all the information regarding wellbeing, mental health, suicidality were altogether in one place that was easily accessible.
"The goal of this site is to make it very, very clear and very, very accessible to make sure that all the information that somebody might need, if they're experiencing mental health concerns, suicidality, if they want to know more about autism mental health then all the information will be together in one place.
"We support autistic individuals who might be experiencing concerns with their mental health. We look at that quite broadly though because even if you're an autistic individual and you're not struggling with your mental health at this point, we have loads of activity that are just focussed on wellbeing which is suitable for anybody.
"We also support the wider family unit as well, so whether that be siblings who have an autistic sibling but aren't autistic themselves, whether that's parents, grandparents, cousins or friends, anybody who has involvement or knows somebody who's autistic we have resources available for them."
The website is also for professionals who support autistic individuals. Rachael added: "Those are on a range of different topics and target for a range of different sectors, whether that be people who work in education, healthcare, private sector, because I think what we really need to make sure that we're aware of and make sure that we consider is that everybody will be contact and will be involved with somebody who's autistic."