by Kate Boyer, Intensive Interaction Facilitator and Mentor
At MacIntyre School in Wingrave, Covid prompted us to look out at our community, make more connections and explore young people's gifts and potential. Many children and young people at our School are autistic, so this story in the Everyone Everywhere series felt like a good start to celebrating Autism Week this year.
Challenging Times
During the Covid pandemic we faced very difficult and challenging times. Our children’s homes were in their own lock down ‘bubbles’ and the children and young people’s education continued in a home schooling style. All the staff teams pulled together to do their very best to support the children to live a life which made sense, a life which was enriched, and a life which was well led.
Support and Kindness
We did our best to keep our local community updated as to how we were managing the situation we found ourselves in. We wanted to reassure our neighbours that children and young adults were safe and well.
We were tucked away in our own safety net, but not being able to access community facilities was indeed challenging. Being creative and flexible in our thinking is standard for us but this was completely different. We received cards and telephone calls from the people of Wingrave wishing us well and praising us for our continued dedication to the young people.
To this day, it is likely those neighbours have no idea quite how much that support and kindness meant to us.
Looking forward to cakes!
One day a cake was left outside our school reception with a note giving thanks and praise for the way we were managing to get through the pandemic.
The following day two cakes were left outside with a similar note. Then it just snowballed, or should we say cakeballed!
Every single day after that throughout the pandemic, we were gifted with cakes, biscuits, home baked pastries and other wonderful treats. With each donation came a note of kindness, a note of thanks or a note of praise. The way our local community came together to support us was absolutely joyful, heart-warming and truly did help us through an extremely difficult time. We began to look forward each day with joyful anticipation, and yes of course we looked forward to the cakes but actually it was the notes – those words meant so much to us.
Giving something back to the community
As life began to return to some sort of normality we wanted to give something back to the kind people of our local community.
We decided that we would be the cake bakers, we would give cakes and kindness, and we wanted to show our appreciation. So we held a coffee morning in our school café, we invited people in – we ate cake together and we talked.
We talked about our school and children’s homes, we talked about the village of Wingrave and we talked about other things. We just talked and ate cake together!
Our Community Café was born
We felt we couldn’t just leave it there. It had been so pleasurable for us to come together. Inclusion matters and through kindness (and cake!) we felt united and a wonderful community spirit filled our school café that day. So, we decided to try opening our café once a month, and so our Community Café was born!
Laura, one of our Senior Learning Support Assistants, was happy to take on the organising and running of this monthly event. Everyone needs a Laura in their life!
Opportunities and Possibilities
Our Community Café has opened up all sorts of opportunities for the young people we support. It's really enabled them to explore and develop their enthusiasms and skills.
From planning, shopping, preparing and baking through to work experience serving in the café – the possibilities are endless. Better than that though, is the opportunity to socially engage and socially communicate, both of which some autistic people can find difficult.
Our Community Café has given a place of safety and familiarity for children and young people to develop their confidence and competence as communicators, an opportunity to have social interactions and engagement with people who are now familiar to them - our local community connections.
A year on
So our Community Café is now approaching its one year anniversary – thanks to Laura’s commitment and dedication it is definitely deemed a complete success.
We have had very positive feedback and it has been delightful to welcome people with their young children into our café. One Grandparent commented how wonderful it has been for her grandchildren to be learning some basic Makaton signing whilst visiting us. The 3rd Friday of the month is now a firm fixture both in our school calendar and with our local community.
Gloriously Ordinary Lives
So we would like to be the ones to start Celebrating Autism Week because we have so much to celebrate. The children and young adults we support are living what we in MacIntyre like to call gloriously ordinary lives. Lives which make complete sense, lives well led and lives where they are accepted for who they are as individual young people – inclusion matters.
Everyone Everywhere
You can read all our recent Everyone Everywhere stories, in which we explore community connections, here.
