Awesome Archie, supporting neurodiversity locally
Introducing Awesome Archie, a local non-profit organisation supporting neurodiversity at school and at home!
10 Jan 2023
We’re excited to announce that we will be collaborating with Awesome Archie for our next campaign, working together on our shared mission to grow autism acceptance.
Awesome Archie is a non-profit organisation that was founded by Rebecca Clapcott, which aims to provide support for neurodiverse children at school and at home.
Rebecca started the non-profit with her son, Archie, who is autistic and has ADHD.
The duo regularly travel to schools across Dorset and Hampshire to provide free educational workshops and in-school support, and Rebecca also provides several children with regular one-to-one support in mainstream schools.
Archie started in a mainstream school himself, but soon realised it wasn’t the right fit.
Now, he’s thriving in a specialist provision where he’s much happier and more confident.
His experience encouraged Rebecca to start visiting mainstream schools to support autistic children, bringing some fun into their school day and helping them to get back on track.
They have also provided tutoring, online art therapy sessions, resources for parents and carers, and published four brilliant books about neurodiversity!
These fun and accessible children’s books, centred around celebrating diversity and differences, are being widely used across Dorset primary schools to help empower and support young children to embrace who they are.
With a decade of experience in education and a distinction in an Education Psychology Diploma, Rebecca is a fantastic source of information for parents, carers and schools.
She recently took part in our Parents & Carers Signalong course, where she learned some useful skills to help her as a parent and for her work supporting autistic children in schools.
While Archie is very verbal at home, he is mostly non-verbal when out in public, and she’s looking forward to using these skills with him.
She enjoyed her time engaging with other parents, sharing experiences, and having fun through various activities. Following the session, she hopes to practice signing daily and implement it wherever she goes in an effort to encourage others to embrace different forms of communication.
She said: “This has been absolutely amazing, we’ve been here all day, signing, we’ve had such fun, we’ve played bingo, we’ve played games, we’ve made new friends, new connections, shared numbers, and it’s just been really lovely and I would recommend it to anyone.”
Her biggest piece of advice to people would be to ‘educate yourself’ – there’s always something to learn and there are plenty of courses available.
“Autism Unlimited, the Dorset Children’s Foundation, me at Awesome Archie, we’re all here to help and this is a journey we’re all proud to share.”
As a parent with lived experience, she brings so many valuable insights and we can’t wait to work with her to promote positive change for the neurodiverse community!
