Education for families of children with ASD

Having a child with ASD can present a challenge to the whole family and has a significant impact on the family quality of life. Parents of children with ASD experience more stress than parents of children with other difficulties especially in the absence of information and support. Training and education for parents can improve their coping strategies, help them adjust their parenting style with autism specific strategies and improve developmental outcomes of their children. However, specific education for families of children with ASD is not available to many parents in south east Europe. Family members, professionals and academics are working together within the ERASMUS + EU funded project to develop, evaluate and establish autism parent training model that can be provided to parents in Cyprus, Macedonia and Croatia. In this paper results of the evaluation of first training courses with parents in three countries will be reported. Training courses have been held in the three countries from March till November 2016. Trainings were delivered in 6 modules through 4 training days. Pre-training, post training and follow up questionnaires were developed as a part of the outcome evaluation process. Parents (approx. 80) have filled the pre–training questionnaire before the onset of training, post–training questionnaires immediately after the training and follow up questionnaires three months after the training. Findings about experiences of living with a child with ASD and the impact of training in three countries will be presented. Implications for further improvements of the training courses will be discussed.