Teenage Life is a six-session programme for parents and carers of young people on the autism spectrum aged 8-18 years, in the Bristol area.

What we do

  • Give you a greater understanding of autism and your child's behaviour.
  • Help you to understand and manage their behaviour.
  • Improve the quality of family life by giving parents vital information and confidence.


How we do it

  • We bring parents together to share information, ideas and experiences.
  • We explore strategies that you can use at home, which we reflect on in our sessions.
  • We run follow-up events so that you can stay in touch with other parents and form networks of your own.  
  • There are two groups, one for parents of 9-13 year-olds; another for parents of 14-18 year-olds.


What we talk about

Our Teenage Life programme covers the following subjects:

  • understanding behaviour
  • explaining autism to your child
  • coping with your child's 'differences'
  • setting realistic expectations for your child and in turn, managing their expectations
  • developing your child's self-esteem and social skills
  • responding to challenging behaviour
  • dealing with crises - managing anger
  • sexuality and puberty
  • education and transition
  • choices after the age of 16
  • benefits and entitlements
  • getting support from agencies such as health and social services.


Teenage Life evaluation

Teenage Life has been evaluated by University of Bristol with significant positive change across three standardised measures: Parental confidence in the management of Asperger syndrome (PCMAS); Family quality of life survey (FQOL); and Tool to measure parenting self-efficacy (TOPSE).

The Teenage Life programme has been written by Andrew Powell and Joanna Parry. It is funded by NHS Bristol.