Our ACCESS interns are busy getting our team t-shirts made! ASK Team is walking and running to raise funds to enable us to continue to subside the costs of our services and programs. One of our ACCESS interns participated in “La Nuit des Musées”. His booth was located at the Natural History Museum and offered edible insects as a sustainable food alternative. It was a hit! The ACCESS Program works with each intern to identify their interests and creates individualised learning opportunities to promote socially significant skills. Contact us to learn more about the placements we organise and what the ACCESS Program can offer your son/daughter. Our team created an additional guide to the Swiss Medical Care System in Geneva – Access to Medical Care. The 4th document is our ‘Welcome to Switzerland’ pack. Our pack includes: the School System, the Disability Insurance, the Health System and Access to Medical Care in Switzerland, specifically in Geneva. Connect Club During May, we began our Connect Club for teenagers. Our Connect Club is a truly unique offering in Geneva, that has been carefully developed in consultation with parents and teenagers to offer a space which is supportive, empathetic and responsive to each individual’s needs. The Connect Club focuses on the development of social relationships, expanding strategies for organisation/planning, and building self-awareness around important topics. We are providing teenagers with the opportunity to meet others with similar interests and experiences. They have the opportunity to work on joint projects, to develop important self-advocacy, negotiation and compromising skills in a gentle and naturalistic way. Our club includes outings within the community. Our first outing took us to Dreamscapes, exploring virtual reality worlds. Based on the success of the Connect Club, we are extending this into our Bilingual summer camp, to introduce our first Connect Camp. The Connect Camp will run from 10.00-16.30 each day. The teenagers will take part in activities, such as music, arts and crafts, choreography and dance, orienteering, survival skills, smartfit interactive sports, yoga and mindfulness, cooking classes among others. They will also have the opportunity to partake in multiple activities around Geneva city, such as trampoline parks, watersports (paddleboarding, kayaking, sailing), aqua parks, selfie tours of museums/ historical sites in Geneva, picnics and much more. The Connect Camp promises to be a jam-packed week of adventures and activities that will suit all interests. Please register directly here or contact us for more information. ACCESS and IT STEP Academy In a world that is increasingly becoming digital, the need for basic digital literacy skills has become a necessity. The partnership between ASK and IT STEP Academy (new name Next Academy) has resulted in tremendous outcomes in developing basic digital literacy skills among the ACCESS Interns. The interns who participated in the digital activities offered by the academy achieved remarkable results in developing basic digital skills such as fast typing, working with a mouse, and working with browsers. Additionally, they gained skills in robotics with LEGO, coding, and game development. Fast typing skills are crucial for efficient communication in the digital world, and working with browsers is essential for online research and communication. Furthermore, robotics with LEGO, coding, and game development are critical skills in the current technological age, and mastering them will provide a foundation to learn new professional skills that are planned for the next term. The program has demonstrated the importance of digital literacy skills in personal development and the need for continued efforts to bridge the digital gap. Coffee with Experts Thank you to Dr Deborah Schneider who spoke with our parent group on the topic of dyslexia this month. Her suggestions for resources and ideas for working with your child were very much appreciated. We look forward to welcoming Deborah again to share her insight on other important topics. Join the upcoming parent lunchtime discussion, where communications professional Joanne Horne will outline strategies to help parents prepare for key meetings with school and professionals. We will discuss simple communications techniques that can aid in preparing messages and questions, and can help you keep on topic as you advocate for your child. This will be an interactive session, where we can reflect together on recent meetings and prepare for ones coming up. Joanne has been advocating for her now 23 year old dyspraxic daughter through her school years and beyond, and is a parent volunteer for ASK. Our team recommends ASK would like to share information about the program of research being run by Prof. Stephanie Durrleman – University of Fribourg/University of Geneva, Switzerland. They are recruiting children with autism between the ages of 3 and 11 years to participate in a study on bilingualism in autism, which is funded by the SNSF and has been approved by Swissethics. The details of the study can be found on their website here in several languages. Ville de Geneve | The Sports Service is organising almost 120 classes run by professional coaches for a sporting summer. The opportunity to discover a sport or hone your skills during the holidays ABA Congress | June 23 and 24 | There are many interesting international and local speakers lined up for this year’s conference. Click here for more details on the program. As we approach the end of the school year, life seems to get a little more hectic. Here are some interesting ways to handle stress | 11 healthy ways to handle life’s stressors We invite you to read our full newsletter.