Adrianne works in ELI and has been a Parent-child plus Home Visitor for 16 years. Born in the NEIC and raising her own family here.
‘One of my favourite memories was from when we had playgrounds in the area where I grew up. That was Sherrard Street and Brígids Gardens. We actually had; it was kind of divided back then. You had the girl’s playground and the boy’s playground. But the best thing about the summer months was you were out from early morning till the last thing at night and the furthest you went was either you played in the gardens, you played in the playgrounds or then you either went on outings with the people who ran the clubs, you would’ve went to Portmarnock for the day. You would’ve went to Bray for the day. I went there for the whole day, and it didn’t matter where you went, it’s just everybody was together. We don’t have playgrounds here anymore, and they need to actually change them for children with additional needs. I mean, they need to be catered for nowadays, say, like children with additional needs have these types of toys or these types of objects that you can climb on and things like that that are more sensory aware. We run the Parent 365, a program that is run for families with children on the spectrum that either have a diagnosis or don’t. It’s a safe space for them to come once a week because there’s no judgements. Because we would probably have a little background on if a child becomes triggered or overwhelmed or stuff like that. So what we always hear back from the parent is, ‘I don’t feel as if I’m being judged when I walk in here because if the child becomes overwhelmed and he’s overstimulated. Like everybody just backs off and lets the parent work where there’s no judgements. We also have access to the sensory room here. So the parent, if they choose to bring the child off, they regulate themselves. If they want to come back in, they come back in. If they don’t, it’s fine. Come back in, come back the next week. But then we offer supports too to the parents through Zoom calls so that they can learn other information or even self-care for themselves. And I know the NEIC runs in East Wall; they have groups, too, but they’re not everywhere in all of Dublin. So there’s an awful lot of children being left out.’
