Meet Paula
- LPCF
- Jul 10
- 2 min read
Hi, I’m Paula and co-founder of PDA support Lancs, a parent carer support group for families with children and young people with a PDA profile of Autism.
In 2022 my then 13 year old son went into Autistic burnout. Prior to this, we did not know he was autistic but he had suffered years of school related anxiety which progressively worsened.
Hitting burnout literally turned our world upside down and the life we had been accustomed had to change significantly to accommodate the care and support needed during recovery.
Fast forward 3 years, we have now secured an EHCP with an EOTAS package and our son is coming on in leaps and bounds. We hope this will lead to a successful transition to College in the near future.
This has been an incredibly traumatic and life changing experience for all our family. A rollercoaster of highs and lows whilst discovering a new way of life and battling the system to get the education and support put into place. This has included going to
tribunal to appeal the contents of his EHCP.
It has felt extremely lonely at times, overwhelming and mentally exhausting. Discovering parent support groups has been key to helping me navigate the past few years and help my own mental health. There was no local support group to help families who care for children with a pathological demand avoidance (PDA) profile of autism and so with the help of our other our-founder, trustees and volunteers our group developed in the form of a private facebook group and we now hold face to face meetings in Preston and
Lancashire.
By joining the roundtable, I will bring together the voice an experience of our group members so that we can educate strategic members about the barriers to education, health care and social care support they face. I would like to raise the profile of PDA and work in collaboration with strategic members to develop a mission statement similar to that produced by Sefton County Council, Alder Hey children's NHS foundation trust and Liverpool and Sefton PCF.
A shared understanding of PDA will help improve an understanding amongst professionals and improve the experience and support received. This can be viewed as followed
I am particularly interested in accessible alternative provision, and raising the difficulties families face with education otherwise than at school (EOTAS) packages.
For further enquires you can use the contact form on our website
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