Aurum Autism Support

We are excited to announce that the Wynn Foundation have given us a further 6 months of funding for our Shropshire women's group! A big thank you to the Wynn Foundation for giving us this grant! 🥰

Good morning everyone ☀️ Just a reminder that, on the 15th of September, some of our members will be taking part in a 10 mile sponsored walk to raise important funds for Aurum. If you would like to sponsor them please go to https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/aurum-autism-support-hill-walk-2024 Thank you for your support!😊

Please sponsor our members who will be walking 10 miles on the 15th of September to raise funds for Aurum! Good luck to everyone who is taking part! ⭐️

https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/aurum-autism-support-hill-walk-2024

Please nominate Aurum for a Charity Hero's Award in the Small Charity, Big Impact category! Each winning charity will receive £5000! Our Charity number is 1206758 😊

Charity Heroes Awards 2024 - Benefact Group Supporting charities is what drives us at the Benefact Group, so we are thrilled to launch our new awards, dedicated to celebrating and supporting the brilliant charities who work tirelessly to make positive change.

We had a wonderful evening at our annual Summer Social in Malvern last night 🌞

Thank you to everyone who joined us, including those who ducked out of the photo!

Why not borrow a book from the new Aurum library! Our library is made up of books about autism that are not available in the local libraries. Books can be borrowed by Aurum members and parents. If you would like to borrow a book, or have any questions, email [email protected]. Please also get in touch if you have any books that you have found helpful and would like to donate to the library!

Not only did our wonderful group members achieve a gold in the Malvern Well Dressing, they also brought home the Chairman’s Cup 🏆

Congratulations to everyone involved!

Some of our wonderful group members and their families have been working incredibly hard on our Malvern Well Dressing, which they set up yesterday.

Our well dressing was accompanied by a poem combining this year’s theme of ‘trees’ with autism, which with written by Rosie, who is one of our talented women’s group members:

Mycorrhizal Networks

An entangled network of old roots and new saplings, of helping hands.
Technology is the fungi, our symbiotic ally.

Bound together, through roots and mycelium our community grows like a forest.
Year after year we grow stronger.

Lasting longer than tv tropes and outdated scientific notes.
We spread our knowledge through networks like sugar through hyphae.

Our green leaves shine with confidence, each shape is as different as a fingerprint.
Through courage we spread our branches of hyperfixations.

The below photos were kindly shared with us by a parent of one of our amazing girls’ group members.

A huge thank you to Becky for suggesting that we give this a try and for all her hard work coordinating this, and to all our group members and families that have helped out!

We have some exciting news to share…

We found out today that Aurum has now been officially registered as a charity!

Thank you so much to Susan for all of her hard work in making this happen for us 😊

We’re busy fundraising at Waitrose in Malvern today. Please come and say hello!

We have secured a small grant from the Herefordshire and Worcestershire Su***de Prevention Programme to set up a library of books relating to autistic women and girls. Please let us know here if you have any suggestions!

Update: we’re incredibly grateful to have received some generous cash donations alongside donations via our crowdfunding page. We’re over half way to our goal having raised £613 so far. Please consider donating to help us reach £1000!

We have just launched our Christmas fundraiser to help raise money towards the vital work that we do to support autistic women and girls. If you would like to donate please follow the link:

Aurum Autism Support Christmas Appeal 2023 Aurum provides specialist support for autistic women and girls, and their families, to help them live authentic and fulfilling lives.

We’re excited to announce that we have been awarded funding from the Wynn Foundation to expand our service into Shropshire 🙂

Please see the flyer below for details and get in touch if you would like further information about the new group.

A lovely morning of outdoor yoga followed by a picnic lunch at Arley Arboretum. Thank you to Victoria from Wildlove Yoga for the wonderful tuition 😊

A fantastic evening yesterday at our Aurum summer social. Thank you to everyone that joined us - it’s always a privilege to be in such wonderful company!

Councillor Natalie McVey also came along to say hello and to spend time finding out more about what we do. Natalie has kindly offered to award £500 of her divisional funding to Aurum - thank you Natalie 😊. And, a big thank you to Rebecca for organising this!

A brilliant day yesterday! We completed our 10 mile fundraising walk in the sunshine and the red arrows even made an appearance 😃

Thank you to all the group members, staff, and family members that took part, and to Kevin for leading the way!

Our sponsorship page is still open for anyone that would like to make a donation:

https://localgiving.org/appeal/aurumautismsupport/

We are incredibly fortunate to have just received a grant from the Nathan Tomkins Trust. This will enable us to fund an administrative assistant for the next 12 months 😊

We had a lovely time at Cadbury World on Saturday! It was great to see everyone enjoying themselves even though it was rather busy and noisy there!

Next week is World Autism Acceptance week. NHS Midlands is running the following free online event which features our wonderful committee member, Zoe, along with three other amazing autistic women - Sara, Karen and Chloe.

Collective, Connection and Community - ‘An autistic women’s collective share their experiences and discuss the power of finding connection and community post-diagnosis’
Wednesday 29th March 10-11.30am.

A facilitated session discussing the personal experiences of neurodivergence throughout different stages in life, and explore some common themes and questions encountered.

Join conversation

We are launching our exciting new online social groups in February which are totally free to attend! These are aimed at young people (under the age of 18years of age)

Our first group will be 'Passionate about Pets'

Spaces will be limited so don't delay, please email [email protected] to book your space.

A big thank you to Daisy for raising £100 for Aurum through her craft sales! ⭐️ If anyone else would like to fundraise for us please contact [email protected]

We are really excited to share that we have recently been awarded funding from the Sir John Middlemore Charitable Trust to provide individual support for women and girls, and from the Commonwealth Games Legacy Small Grants scheme to provide aerial yoga sessions for women and girls 😊

What a great start to the year!

We had a lovely time last week celebrating Aurum’s first birthday 🥳 Thank you to all the wonderful women and girls that we support and their families for helping to make Aurum’s first year so special 😊 We are now supporting over 70 families across Worcestershire, Herefordshire and beyond, and are excited to see what 2023 has in store for us!

Movement for Good are giving away £1000 to 120 charities in December. Please nominate us to give us a chance of being awarded this!

Movement for Good - We could receive £1,000 with your help . Nominate now. We could recieve £1,000 in the 12 days, Movement for Good draw.

Really interesting webinar on interoception and emotional processing - now available to watch on the Autistoc Girl’s Network YouTube channel:

Feeling Autistic: Interoception and Emotional Differences with Joanna Grace A look at interoception and differences in emotional processing and the impact that may have on mental health.This addition to our series, ...

Suspect this will be well worth a read…

Our CEO, Cathy is neurodivergent and mum to 2 autistic young people. She knows that as a parent of a child recognised as autistic as a pre-teen or teen, it can often feel difficult to find the answers you need. Children who make it to late primary/early secondary age before being picked up by the system tend to present with traits that are harder to spot, meaning it can be harder to engage professionals in the diagnostic process and gather the necessary support.

Cathy has tailored this handbook to support parents with older children or teenagers who are at the identification stage, walking them through the basics in an engaging and accessible manner. She addresses key challenges for this age group, including co-occurring conditions, puberty, and safeguarding, as well as looking to the future, advising on schooling options, and beyond.

Designed to help parents become fully informed and ensure a nurturing and positive environment for our autistic young people, this is a guide with a focus on difference - not deficit.

Pre-order your copy here - https://bit.ly/3LZ6OKU

We still have places for our webinar on 4th October!

'Autism and Girls'

Free for Parents Carers and Professionals in the West Midlands Region

Including:
Boys v. girls prevalence
Possible explanations
Impact of autism on girls
Supportive approaches

Tuesday 4th October 2022
9:30am – 10:30am

See the details and register here: https://autismwestmidlands.org.uk/events/autism-and-girls-webinar-west-midlands-4oct/

We are currently trying to raise some funds so that we can increase the amount of support that Aurum is able to provide. Every contribution, whatever the size, will help us move towards this goal. Please share!!

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