SuperValu and AsIAm have worked together to launch an online Covid-19 seminar for the autism community.

AsIAm is Ireland’s national autism advocacy charity and the online seminar is part of an ongoing series that has been running in communities across the country over the last couple of months. Due to the escalation of the coronavirus in recent weeks and the need to stay home where possible, these seminars will now be made available online. Sponsored by Supervalu, the 'Covid-19 and Change' seminar includes expert tips from Psychotherapist Michael Ryan and Educational Psychologist Dr Alison Doyle on positive mental health and staying on top of educational demands. The seminar aims to provide tips for parents of children with autism, in relation to dealing with the lack of structure and routine while schools remain closed. It is estimated that over 50,000 families in Ireland are living with autism and the seminar aims to provide a valuable resource, it can be viewed on the AsIAm website here. Adam Harris, CEO of AsIAm says:

 "AsIAm delivers Community Support Seminars across Ireland with the kind support of SuperValu. These seminars happen each month and cover the issues that our community face the most challenges in - from accessing supports in school through to finding a job and maintaining positive mental health. Due to current social-distancing guidelines these events cannot take place in local communities, but we know our community needs support now more than ever which is why we have decided to turn our seminar series into a webinar series!" "Routine and structure are vital supports for autistic people, and we are all presently faced with major changes to our daily life from where we learn to who and how we keep in touch. This is especially hard for the autism community and so our first Community Support Webinar looks at how we can deal with this change, create new routines and support structures and critically tackle boredom and isolation. Michael Ryan and Alison Doyle are leading experts in the fields of mental health and autism and educational psychology, and we are grateful to bring their expertise to our community at this critical time".

Martin Kelleher, SuperValu Managing Director also commented:

"As sponsors of the community support seminars we are delighted these can now go online to support the autism community. Now more than ever we need to continue to support the autism community".