One Page Summary

Challenge and summary:

Emotional support project for parents of autistic children / Carers Trust Heart of England.

Stent.care / Carers Trust Heart of England: a virtuous circle of social innovation.

The project to provide emotional support for parents of autistic children is a logical extension of the spirit behind Stent.care's development. The remainder of this document responds to the Carers Trust Heart of England call for proposals.

We propose a partnership that would contribute to the development of our activities. This would involve Carers Trust Heart of England acting as the relay for the development and use of an innovative tool that would provide flexible, high-quality emotional support for the parents of children with autism spectrum disorders. The primary goal is to enable these parents to ask for help from health professionals or other families, anywhere and at any time.

Autistic people often suffer from associated pathologies or new pathologies that make their daily lives and those of their families more difficult. To help the parents of children with autism spectrum disorders, the digital social network allows them to make contact with families affected by pathologies other than autism spectrum disorders.

The central idea behind the project is to offer the option of encouraging contact through the use of a tailored, secure social network.

In the context of autism spectrum disorders, families have an increasingly active role in dealing with the condition and caring for their children. Families are acquiring knowledge that was previously the preserve of care professionals.

Sadly, relations between parents of autistic children and professionals can only appear incomprehensible to anyone not familiar with the unfathomable pain of having an autistic child and living with them on a daily basis.

This is no way prevents these children from bringing great joy to their families and friends, arousing intense love and giving their families the opportunity to consider profound questions about life, the body, the mind and the roots of humanisation.

Nevertheless, sharing daily life with these children can sometimes take on the appearance of a real ordeal, and families can be terribly distressed and isolated in dealing with their child and the care offered.

Fortunately, the message from professionals to parents of autistic children no longer contains any element of blame.

We have taken all the characteristics of these families into consideration in the implementation of our emotional support solution for parents of autistic children.

The outlines of our solution can be described as follows:

• Requirements of confidentiality and digital security.
• Requirements for simplicity of use so that the tool is accessible to anyone, regardless of their computer skills.Requirements for information sharing between parents (practical, legal, health-related etc.).
• Requirements for sharing with health professionals.
• Requirements associated with the need for urgent help and support.

Added value provided by Stent.care.

• Digital social network for the parents of ill offspring (children/adults).
• Innovative, adaptable technical platform.
• Security against hacking/malicious behaviour.
• Pooling of the functions of the Stent.care DSN.
• Financial and human resources.
• Start-up ecosystem.
• International objectives.
• Geographical location: European capital.