Tuesday, November 23, 2004

Tips for Running a Social Group for autistic teens and young people (Autism Society of Wisconsin)

Tips for Running a Social Group
Tips for Starting a Social Group:

1. Think positive - It’s not as much work as it sounds. All you need is a computer and a sense of fun. Start by doing things you and your family enjoy. The AUsome newsletter invites others to join me and my family in an interesting adventure.
2. Start small. The AUsome Social Group now has almost members, but we started with 4. Our first activities were very conventional – like bowling.
3. You don’t have to do everything at once. This document is a series of tips that has evolved over the past years. Just because AUsome has a formal newsletter and a scrapbook doesn’t mean your group has to do that, especially right away. Do whatever works for you.
4. Maintain a list of group members. I use an Access database for this purpose. I collect name, address, phone numbers (home, work, parents), e-mail address, birth date, parent’s names and a general comments field. I keep this list updated religiously...

There's much more. Quite a nice piece of work!

No comments: