Autism Early Support

Education, support and research for early years autism

Support for families

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Support for nurseries, schools and practitioners

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Autism Early Support: training courses and latest news

Upcoming courses and latest news

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Who we are

We are specialists in early intervention for children with autism or communication difficulties, working with families and practitioners across the UK to offer structured assessments, practical support and advice, training and consultancy in response to your and your child’s needs.

We are an integrated part of the well-established Puzzle Centre. We believe that every child with autism or other communication difficulties should have access to prompt, appropriate and high quality education, therapy and support.

Our mission is to provide high quality education and therapy for young children with autism or other communication difficulties; to ensure that families receive expert advice and support; and to lead the development of best practice early intervention.

We do this through our bespoke assessment and support services, tailored to your particular needs and delivered by our team of Specialist Teachers, Speech and Language Therapists, Occupational Therapists and Special Learning Assistants. We can provide support for children aged 2 – 11 years.

Our expertise is founded on our specialist nursery, which has pioneered early intervention with pre-school children since 2001 and is recognised as an exemplar of good practice, receiving successive “Outstanding” ratings from Ofsted as well as commendations from people using our services. Autism Early Support provides this same expertise in your own setting for children aged 2 – 11 years, offering personalised support, consultancy and training for families, teachers and other practitioners in education and health.

Find out about the support we can provide to families

Find out about the support we can provide to nurseries, schools and practitioners

What we do

We deliver and promote early intervention for young children with autism or communication difficulties (aged 2-11 years). We do this through tailored programmes of assessment, support and advice, consultancy and training.

We have well-established expertise in Speech and Language Therapy, Occupational Therapy, Specialist Teaching and Learning Support. Our multidisciplinary team can provide an integrated programme of support around your child, your professional or organisational needs, as well as offering discrete assessments, therapies and training. (Please note, we do not provide a diagnostic service.)

We work with families, nurseries, schools, educational and health practitioners. By working in partnership with you to understand your needs and objectives, each programme can be tailored to your specific child and context.

Our Speech and Language Therapists provide help with the development of communication and interaction.
Our Occupational Therapists help to address physical and sensory differences that impact on daily life.
Our Specialist Teachers help you to understand your child’s development and early educational approaches.
Our Special Learning Support Assistants can work directly with your child, as part of a programme supervised by a lead Teacher or Therapist.

Early intervention encompasses a range of specific, structured and targeted approaches to support and enhance development in young children. The types of intervention and tools that we use are founded on established research- and evidence-based practice, as well as our own extensive experience.

Educational model

We have adopted the SCERTS® framework for working with children with autism and related difficulties, and their families. This is a multidisciplinary framework that offers an integrated approach to the child and his/her development. It provides specific guidelines for helping a child become a competent and confident social communicator, while preventing problem behaviours that interfere with learning and the development of relationships. It is also designed to help families, educators and therapists work cooperatively as a team, in a coordinated manner, to maximize progress in supporting a child.

When supporting a specific child, we deploy a range of interventions and therapies within the framework of the SCERTS model, according to our joint assessment of your needs. These will be led by one or more members of our specialist team of Teachers and Therapists.

Professional support

We are a national demonstration site for the SCERTS model, and are able to provide training and consultancy in the effective deployment of SCERTS within your setting to help you to implement the model effectively.

We also provide training to nurseries, schools and practitioners on early intervention techniques, and as an accredited provider of the national Autism Education Trust early years training programme for which we have an exclusive licence for Milton Keynes.

In addition, we provide consultancy on a range of interventions through bespoke agreement.

Please contact us us to discuss how we can help you.

Meet the team

Alex Stanyer MBE

Founder and CEO - B.Ed, MA (Infant Spec.Ed), Dip. Speech and Language Difficulties

Alex has over 30 years’ experience of working with children with a range of developmental and learning difficulties. She has taught children with autistic spectrum disorders, learning and language difficulties of all ages – in mainstream and special schools and nurseries as well as their own homes. Her main focus of work has been with pre-school children and she has developed a particular interest and expertise in teaching young children with autism. Alex set up Puzzle Centre in 2001 and worked directly with children in the nursery as a specialist teacher for many years.

Alex was one of the original group of volunteers who trained as an Advisor for the National Autistic Society’s Education Advice Line and continues to present a range of training courses and at conferences for parents and practitioners about Early Years education and autism. She is a member of the International Society for Early Intervention and was on the Expert Reference Group for the Autism Education Trust (AET) for seven years. She is one of several consultants who developed a national set of standards, competencies and training materials for Early Years autism on behalf of the AET. Alex was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list, in June 2019, for services to young people with autism.

Ella Millerchip

Specialist Teacher - B.Ed (Hons) PGCE N.N.E.B.

Ella has over 20 years’ experience working in Early Years settings, including as a teacher in mainstream settings.

Ella joined Puzzle Centre in 2009 and has extensive experience of implementing the SCERTS framework alongside the Early Years Foundation Stage Curriculum.

She has recently completed her Post Graduate Certificate in Education for Special Education Needs and has also undertaken Sleep Practitioner Training with The Children’s Sleep Charity. Ella works both in the Puzzle Centre nursery and as part of the Autism Early Support team.

Claire Keenan

Specialist Teacher - BA Hons PGCE

Claire has taught in mainstream schools since 1992, covering a variety of subjects and Key Stages, through which she developed a passion for working with children who have additional needs. She also has personal experience as a parent of a child with additional needs, understanding the value of early intervention approaches.

Claire joined Puzzle Centre in 2018 and has recently completed a Level 4 City & Guilds course about working with parents of children with complex needs.

Julie Smith

Paediatric Occupational Therapist - BSc(Hons) OT, SROT

Julie joined Puzzle Centre in 2014, bringing 13 years of experience of working with children. Prior to joining Puzzle Centre, Julie worked at the PACE Centre with children with sensory motor disorders. Julie assists families and practitioners to meet the sensory and motor needs of the children who are supported by Puzzle Centre, both in the nursery and as part of the Autism Early Support team.

Laura Gomersall

Specialist Speech and Language Therapist - BSc (Hons) Speech Pathology and Language Therapy

Laura joined Puzzle Centre in 2019, as a Speech and Language Therapist focusing on Autism Early Support services. She qualified in 2005 from Queen Margaret University College and has since worked in a variety of health and education settings with children up to the age of 18 years, both overseas and in the UK. Laura has had experience working with children with a range of speech, language and communication needs.

Michelle Harford

Specialist Speech and Language Therapist Msc (Hons).

Michelle joined the Puzzle Centre team in September 2019. She has worked with children and adults in a range of settings since completing her Psychology degree in 2003. Michelle qualified as a Speech and Language Therapist from the University of Reading in 2010, and has since worked in an educational setting with school aged children. Michelle works in the Autism Early Support team.

Diana Hilton-Jones

Specialist Speech and Language Therapist - LCST Dip. Speech and Language Pathology

After qualifying in 1979, Diana initially specialised in working with children with specific speech and language disorders and has worked in a variety of settings – clinics, special schools, mainstream schools and language units – with a range of paediatric client groups, many of whom have had social communication difficulties.

Diana has worked at Puzzle Centre from 2005, in both the nursery and as part of the Autism Early Support team.

Contact us

Please contact us using the enquiry form on this page. Alternatively, you can get in touch with us using the details below.

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Autism Early Support - outreach, training and consultancy

Tel:

01296 711547

Email:

outreach@puzzlecentre.org.uk

Address:

Market House
Office 3, 14 Market Square
Winslow
Buckinghamshire
MK18 3AF

Support us

Puzzle Centre is a charity which can only exist through the generosity of our supporters and volunteers.

As an individual, a company, a community group, a charitable trust, or as another funding or fundraising body – you can make a real difference to the development and life chances of children with autism or communication difficulties, to their families, and to the professionals that work with them. To find out more about our fundraising needs visit our charity website at Puzzle Centre

If you would like to find out more about how you can help, please contact us.

If you would like to make a donation, you can donate online by clicking the button below.

Thank you for your support and for the wonderful difference you can make.

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At Puzzle Centre, we’re committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.
This Policy explains when and why we collect personal information about people who contact us (e.g. by telephone, in writing, by visiting our website or through use of social media), how we use it, the conditions under which we may disclose it to others and how we keep it secure.

We may change this Policy from time to time so please check this page occasionally to ensure that you’re happy with any changes. By contacting Puzzle Centre, you’re agreeing to be bound by this Policy.

Any questions regarding this Policy and our privacy practices should be sent by email to info@puzzlecentre.org.uk or by writing to Puzzle Centre, Market House, 14 Market Square, Buckinghamshire, MK18 3AF. Alternatively, you can telephone 01296 711547.

Who are we?

We’re Puzzle Centre Trust Limited, a charity that promotes and delivers early intervention for young children with autism or communication difficulties and provides training and outreach to families and practitioners throughout the UK. Puzzle Centre Trust Limited is a registered charity (no. 1141868) and company limited by guarantee (no. 07553552). The registered address is The Old School, Middle Claydon, Buckinghamshire, MK18 2ET.

How do we collect information from you?

We obtain information about you when you contact us, for example, when you enquire about products and services, register on the nursery waiting list, make a donation, attend an event or ask to receive our newsletter.

What type of information is collected from you?

The personal information we collect might include your name, address, email address, and telephone number. If you access our website, we might also collect your IP address and information regarding what pages are accessed and when. If you make a donation online or purchase a product from us, your card information is not held by us, it is collected by our third party payment processors, who specialise in the secure online capture and processing of credit/debit card transactions, as explained below.

If appropriate, we might also ask you for details about your child, such as name and date of birth.

How is your information used?

We will use your information to contact you only for the purposes and via the channels for which you have given us your consent.

For example, this might be to:

process a donation that you have made;
process orders that you have submitted;
to carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into by you and us;
dealing with entries into a competition;
seek your views or comments on the services we provide;
notify you of changes to our services;
send you communications which you have requested and that may be of interest to you.
process a job application.

We review our retention periods for personal information on a regular basis. We are legally required to hold some types of information to fulfil our statutory obligations (for example the collection of Gift Aid). We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as is necessary for the relevant activity, or as long as is set out in any relevant contract you hold with us.

Who has access to your information?

We will not sell or rent your information to third parties.
We will not share your information with third parties for marketing purposes.

Third Party Service Providers working on our behalf:

We may pass your information to our third party service providers, agents subcontractors and other associated organisations for the purposes of completing tasks and providing services to you on our behalf (for example to process donations and send you mailings). However, when we use third party service providers, we disclose only the personal information that is necessary to deliver the service and we have a contract in place that requires them to keep your information secure and not to use it for their own direct marketing purposes. Please be reassured that we will not release your information to third parties beyond Puzzle Centre Trust Limited for them to use for their own direct marketing purposes, unless you have requested us to do so, or we are required to do so by law, for example, by a court order or for the purposes of prevention of fraud or other crime.

Third Party Product Providers we work in association with:

When you are using our secure online donation pages, your donation is processed by a third party payment processor, who specialises in the secure online capture and processing of credit/debit card transactions. If you have any questions regarding secure transactions, please contact us.

We may transfer your personal information to a third party as part of a sale of some or all of our business and assets to any third party or as part of any business restructuring or reorganisation, or if we’re under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation or to enforce or apply our terms of use or to protect the rights, property or safety of our supporters and customers. However, we will take steps with the aim of ensuring that your privacy rights continue to be protected.

Your choices

You have a choice about whether or not you wish to receive information from us.

We will not contact you for marketing purposes by email, phone or text message unless you have given your prior consent. We will not contact you for marketing purposes by post if you have indicated that you do not wish to be contacted. You can change your marketing preferences at any time by contacting us by email: info@puzlecentre.org.uk or telephone on 01296 711547.

How you can access and update your information

The accuracy of your information is important to us. We’re working on ways to make it easier for you to review and correct the information that we hold about you. In the meantime, if you change email address, or any of the other information we hold is inaccurate or out of date, please email us at: info@puzzlecentre.org.uk, or write to us at: Puzzle Centre, Market House, 14 Market Square, Buckinghamshire, MK18 3AF. Alternatively, you can telephone 01296 711547 or use the self service update form on our website which can be found here: http://www.puzzlecentre.org.uk/support-us/gdpr/

You have the right to ask for a copy of the information Puzzle Centre Trust Limited holds about you.

Security precautions in place to protect the loss, misuse or alteration of your information

When you give us personal information, we take steps to ensure that it’s treated securely. For example, when you are on a secure page of our website, a lock icon will appear on the bottom of web browsers such as Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Non-sensitive details (your email address etc.) given via our website are transmitted normally over the Internet, and this can never be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us, and you do so at your own risk. Once we receive your information, we make our best effort to ensure its security on our systems.

Use of ‘cookies’

Like many other websites, Puzzle Centre Trust website uses cookies. ‘Cookies’ are small pieces of information sent by an organisation to your computer and stored on your hard drive to allow that website to recognise you when you visit. They collect statistical data about your browsing actions and patterns and do not identify you as an individual. For example, we use cookies to store your country preference. This helps us to improve our website and deliver a better more personalised service.

It is possible to switch off cookies by setting your browser preferences. For more information on how to switch off cookies on your computer, visit our full cookies policy. Turning cookies of may result in a loss of functionality when using our website.

Links to other websites

Our website may contain links to other websites run by other organisations. This privacy policy applies only to our website‚ so we encourage you to read the privacy statements on the other websites you visit. We cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of other sites even if you access them using links from our website.

In addition, if you linked to our website from a third party site, we cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of the owners and operators of that third party site and recommend that you check the policy of that third party site.

16 or Under

We are concerned to protect the privacy of children aged 16 or under. If you are aged 16 or under‚ please get your parent/guardian’s permission beforehand whenever you provide us with personal information.

Transferring your information outside of Europe

As part of the services offered to you through this website, the information which you provide to us may be transferred to countries outside the European Union (“EU”). By way of example, this may happen if any of our servers are from time to time located in a country outside of the EU. These countries may not have similar data protection laws to the UK. By submitting your personal data, you’re agreeing to this transfer, storing or processing. If we transfer your information outside of the EU in this way, we will take steps to ensure that appropriate security measures are taken with the aim of ensuring that your privacy rights continue to be protected as outlined in this Policy.

If you use our services while you are outside the EU, your information may be transferred outside the EU in order to provide you with those services.

Review of this Policy

We keep this Policy under regular review. This Policy was last updated in May 2019.

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Who we are

We are specialists in early intervention for children with autism or communication difficulties, working with families and practitioners across the UK to offer structured assessments, practical support and advice, training and consultancy in response to your and your child’s needs.

What we do

When supporting a specific child, we deploy a range of interventions and therapies within the framework of the SCERTS model, according to our joint assessment of your needs. These will be led by one or more members of our specialist team of Teachers and Therapists.

Meet the team

Alex Stanyer MBE

Ella Millerchip

Claire Keenan

Julie Smith

Laura Gomersall

Michelle Harford

Diana Hilton-Jones

Contact us

Your details

Type of enquiry

Your enquiry

Autism Early Support - outreach, training and consultancy

Tel:

Email:

Address:

Support us

Autism Early Support

SCERTS

Privacy Policy – Puzzle Centre