The Croydon Workshop for the parents of severely handicapped school age children

A multidisciplinary team of professionals met the parents of 18 severely handicapped children for a series of 10 evening sessions. All children were between 5 and 11 years of age and included six Downs, six non-communicating and six children with rare syndromes or no known diagnosis. The professionals provided practical advice and couselling. They did not adopt one exclusive approach such as behaviour modification, but employed a variety of ideas drawn from several theories of learning and from personal experience. The workshop as well received by both parents and professionals, with an average attendance of 80%. The paper also discusses some of the organizational problems of parent workshops.