Teesside autism charity opens new 'Pathways to Independence' centre
MAIN says the facility is vital for the community
Last updated 1st May 2025
A new centre has opened in Teesside for people with autism to get the experience and life skills they need to become independent.
It is based at MAIN in North Ormesby in Middlesbrough and the charity says this facility is vital for the community.
Kimberley Field is the service manager there and she said: "We're opening up a brand new day service, so this is going to be running initally on a Tuesday and Friday but we'll extending that once we get referrals in. It's for anyone across Tees Valley from social care services and the NHS 18 and over, it's to help individuals recognise their potential.
"It's to focus on helping them to get ready to move into their own independent living, to look at life skills, how to keep safe in the community and we're also going to a lot of enrichment, going out into the community, gardening and art therapy so we're trying to encompass a lot to help people live an independent life.
"we have a lot of individuals, especially our adults, who really want support around cooking, budgeting, understanding around crime etc even talking to people here they've all kind of celebrated that we've identified a need in the area and they're really happy to work in partnership with us.
"We're looking at extending another activity for our children services, maybe for the transitional ages, and we're looking at building a breakout room to help our children and young adults self regulate if they need 5-10 minutes. So if anyone wants to fundraise for us, we're always here."
Heather Whyman is the chief executive and she said: "I've aged 20 years in the three years but it's been an absolute joy. We've got trustees on board now who are absolutely brillant and I'm not saying that they weren't before, but I didn't know them before so the ones that i've go ton board now are brillant. There's so many people that I could mention that have helped and got us to this point.
"We're not there yet. The building still needs quite a bit of work to it but the places that we've now developed are really good, so the one side of our building is our children aged five upwards and this side of the building will be our adult provision, so we're starting to identify areas that are specific to the needs of our young people and adults."