Doreen
A Doreen mother of four is campaigning for the overhaul of the federal government’s Helping Children with Autism package and more funding for schools to assist autistic children.
Three of Natasha Brearley-Ngarua’s four children have been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
Before their diagnosis, she convinced herself their difficult behaviour was typical.
“As a parent you think the meltdowns are normal,” she said. “You go to mothers’ group and you hold it together and act like it’s fine, when it’s not.”
But because her two boys Nicholas and Daniel were diagnosed after their sixth birthday, they missed out on the federal government’s $12,000 Helping Children with Autism package, which provides access to autism early intervention, workshops for newly diagnosed children, playgroups and training for parents and carers, among other related assistance.
The package is available only to children diagnosed before they turn six.
Ms Brearley-Ngarua and her husband have no choice but to pay for their children’s weekly visits to a pediatrician and to speech, occupational and educational therapists. Each session costs about $150 an hour.
Fed up with the lack of support for high-functioning autistic children like her own, she created an online support group that can only be accessed by her Facebook “friends”. “Purely to protect the privacy of people posting, because it can be pretty emotional stuff,” she said.
She has also set up a support group at Plenty Valley church in South Morang and has created an “Autism Awareness and Advocacy in Victoria and Australia” group on Facebook, petitioning the state government to improve school funding for children diagnosed with ASD. She has 139 signatures so far.
LEXI COTTEE
