About Sólás
Established in 2009, Sólás is a special needs charity which supports children and young people with a broad range of additional needs including Autism. We are based in South Belfast; however, our work extends across Northern Ireland.
We have a number of social development, early intervention, educational support, parent support and therapeutic programmes.
For our social development programme, we facilitate a range of after-schools, weekend and summer scheme initiatives for children and young people with additional needs.
Our early intervention programmes are for children aged 2-4 years’ old to support children who are identified as having difficulties or delays in development.
Our home support programme is for families who have a child aged between 4 – 11 years old who are either awaiting an autism assessment or have a diagnosis of autism, where we aim to empower and educate families on autism and interventions.
We have a range of services within our therapeutic programme for children with additional needs and their families, including, art therapy, play therapy, talking therapy and parental / carer counselling.
As part of our educational remit, we run an early intervention initiative called Back on Track which provides support to children who have an additional learning need but do not meet the criteria for statutory support.
We also run an IT programme in primary schools called SchoolPodcast and we are currently developing a training and personal development course for the 18+ bracket.
Our Beginnings
According to Joan Henderson, a key founding member of the charity Sólás the Gaelic word meaning ‘Comfort’ and ‘Support’, perfectly describes what Sólás is about. It was set up in 2008 to provide practical support programmes for children and young people with disabilities and their families in Belfast, and beyond.
Joan credits her sister Annmarie, who has Down Syndrome and lives in Cashel Co. Tipperary as the inspiration behind the Belfast based charity Sólás. In 2008, while Joan was on maternity leave from her lecturing post at QUB, she finally had the space to act on a long held internal passion, to try and level the playing field in community service provision, for children & young people with disabilities.
She reached out to a range of like-minded local people working in education, including Fionnguala McCotter and Caitríona Nic Sheáin, and together they planned the first Sólás focus group session in September 2008, bringing together parents, professionals working in special needs, and community personnel. This event was the first of a series, which proved to be instrumental in informing needs, identifying gaps in services for children & young people with a range of additional needs, and providing the momentum to formally establish the charity Sólás. A key objective was that Sólás would deliver practical support programmes, that would help to level the playing field in service provision for children & young people with disabilities, and enable all children attain full growth.
Sólás is a warm, nurturing and welcoming charity rooted in the community, and available to all. It prides itself on it’s non-partisan, equitable commitment to all service users, regardless of creed, colour, political persuasion, or gender.
Sólás Values
Additional Needs & Autism
Our Educational Support Programme; Back on Track is targeted at those children in mainstream primary education, they are often on the early stages of the School’s Special Education Needs register and not achieving their full learning potential.
The programme provides support to children who have an additional learning need but do not qualify for statutory support. For example, some children may not be achieving a literacy level comparable to their reading age whilst others may struggle with language formation, phonics, time, sentence construction etc.
Our 'Social Development Programmes' are mainly targeted at those children who have been diagnosed with additional needs.
Programmes include After School Respite, Saturday Club, Siblings Club and Youth Club Provision. We facilite a Summer Scheme for school aged children, during July & August.
We have a number of parent support initiatives including mindfulness, art therapy, counselling and a weekly Health and Wellbeing group.
What is Autism?
Autism is a neurodevelopmental condition which means it impacts on how the brain processes social information and communication.
There are 4 main traits which are used to diagnose Autism:
• Social communication
• Social interaction
• Social imagination
• Sensitivities to Sensory input.
Autism is a spectrum condition, so these 4 traits can vary for each individual.
Autism is a lifelong condition and we at Sólás aim to support individuals through many stages of their life, from 2 years old to adulthood. For more information or to ask about our services, please get in touch with a member of our team.
