Pre School

I thought I should capture an image of Liam's preschool as he only has 3 weeks left before he starts school. However, the centre has absolutely no redeeming features (from an architectural standpoint) so I took a photo of the name which has always been a bit of a mouthful. It is the first and only autism specific preschool in NSW (sic). It is run by a NGO called kindergarten Union. It only opened 18 months ago and obviously demand for places are high. Unfortunately, a year after opening, the organization has had to cut places down from 20 to approx 14 as it proving to be too expensive to run. The organization should not be critisised as they have been leaders in providing quality pre school care: they have been one step ahead of government in looking at early intervention for autistic children. The multidisciplinary care is 'expensive' but will reap rewards for many children (and society) in the long term. If we can send men and women to Iraq and Afghanistan we should be able to provide good quality pre school education to some of the most vulnerable children in society. When Liam was first diagnosed, a parent in a similar situation told me we were nothing more than glorified beggars when it came to accessing appropriate services-how right he was.