Blue Houses Blue Houses Blue Houses
Guiding autistic parents and professionals in parenting
About the Project
Blue Houses Blue Houses Blue Houses
This project seeks to address a critical gap in family and professional support systems: the lack of structured frameworks to empower autistic parents in their parenting role. It will develop specialised training programmes, practical resources, and awareness tools to equip education, health, and social care professionals with the skills needed to support neurodivergent families effectively, while strengthening the well-being, confidence, and inclusion of autistic parents and their children.
Objectives of The Project
Objectives Objectives Objectives
General Objective
- To create a comprehensive and inclusive parenting framework for autistic parents, supporting families with children aged 0–18 and promoting children’s holistic development.
- The framework adopts a neurodiversity-affirming approach that recognises and values the needs, strengths, and roles of all family members.
Strengthen professional capacity and awareness
- Train education, health, and social care professionals to understand the specific challenges and strengths of autistic parents.
- Develop structured training programmes, tools, and resources to support professionals in working effectively and collaboratively with neurodivergent families.
- Provide practical, ready-to-use resources that enable professionals to adapt interventions to diverse family realities.
Develop an evidence-based parenting and intervention framework
- Design a coherent working model and intervention framework addressing the needs of both professionals and families.
- Create tailored, practical parenting resources for autistic parents, grounded in evidence-based and strengths-based approaches.
- Integrate methodologies that reflect the lived experiences, capabilities, and challenges of neurodivergent families.
Foster inclusive support communities and co-creation spaces
- Encourage the creation of sustainable support networks and meeting spaces between autistic parents and professionals.
- Facilitate peer exchange, mutual learning, and the development of solidarity networks.
- Actively involve autistic parents in the co-design of solutions to ensure relevance, ownership, and impact.
Who this project is for
Target Groups Target Groups Target Groups
Target Groups
Direct Target Group 1
Professionals working with families, including teachers, psychologists, social workers, therapists, and other education, health, and social care practitioners who support families, including neurodivergent families.
These professionals will directly benefit from access to a structured reference framework, specialised training, and practical resources tailored to emerging realities. They will also be actively involved in consultations and feedback processes to assess the relevance, usability, and effectiveness of the intervention model.
Direct Target Group 2
Autistic parents (mothers and fathers), who are central to the project. They will receive specialised, needs-based support aimed at strengthening parenting skills and confidence.
Autistic parents will participate throughout the project lifecycle through focus groups, co-creation workshops, pilot activities, and awareness-raising actions, ensuring that outputs are grounded in lived experience.
Indirect Target Group 1
Children of autistic parents, who will benefit indirectly from improved family dynamics, strengthened parenting roles, and a more inclusive and supportive home environment.
Enhanced parental well-being and reduced stress are expected to contribute to children’s emotional stability, social development, and educational outcomes.
Indirect Target Group 2
The wider community and general public, including individuals with limited awareness of neurodivergent families.
Through dissemination and awareness activities, the project will promote greater understanding, empathy, and respect for neurodiversity, contributing to more inclusive social attitudes.
Indirect Target Group 3
Experts and specialists in autism, who will contribute to the validation of the intervention framework and project materials.
Their involvement will ensure scientific rigour, alignment with best practices, and the overall quality and effectiveness of the project outputs.
