![]() Mrs Wallis said: “Alan and Lindsey have been taking Laura and Stevie to ride bikes as he’s very practical and outdoorsy. The pair have also been helped to learn how to ride a bicycle. Now they’re all paid.” They are currently working on Makaton, a sign language used to facilitate speech as the siblings sometimes struggle with expressing themselves and when they are in pain. “We advertised in the Henley Standard for volunteer facilitators and got 20 or 30 and it gradually went from there. “We did it with Laura and then a couple of years later, we did it with Stevie and then we came back and set up a programme at home. We weren’t allowed out of the centre, we just had to stay there working with them. “In order to learn the methodology, you have to take the children and spend a whole week in a room in a centre basically learning this technique. “We wrote an article for the Henley Standard and ended up raising the £20,000 needed to get to America and take the course. It doesn’t mean that you don’t try to keep expanding their boundaries but you start from a point of love and acceptance, find what they find fun and teach through that. “I thought, ‘Wow, that’s exactly what I want to do’. “They had a video about Son-Rise at this meeting and it was about celebrating autism, making a fun environment for your kids and totally accepting who they are - not wanting them to be any different, not wanting them to be neurotypical. She said: “After they were born, it took me about three-and-a-half years to realise that Laura and Stevie were autistic but I didn’t want to say, ‘Oh, isn’t this awful? I’ve got two kids with autism and severe learning difficulties’. ![]() Mrs Wallis first came across the methodology at a meeting for parents with autism. Laura and Stevie have been home-taught since a young age, apart from stints at a Montessori nursery and Abingdon College, and this will continue for the rest of their lives.Įducation is at the core of the Son-Rise Program and Mrs Howard-Dean has been practising it for more than 20 years. “They’re given more independence and freedom and I’m still here half of the week, so I’m still very much a huge part of the programme. ![]() We set it up in their own home, which they’ve been in for almost all their lives and know really well and they’ve got the security. Mrs Wallis said: “We created what we call Project Dreamlife. Mrs Howard-Dean, who has been a friend of the family for almost 20 years, suggested that Mrs Wallis moved out and her children continue to live in the house. “Their dad died about seven years ago of cancer and I thought, ‘What happens if something happens to me?’ We wanted a fourth way.” “So you’ve got to think, ‘Do I put them in some institution somewhere where they’re away from home or do I put them in a supported living environment?’ “The standard ones are: keep them at home forever until you get older and can’t look after them and then they go in a home put them in a supportive living setting, which is where the council will find them a house and they go in with some other autistic children or young adults and then carers come in and look after them or put them into an institution. She said: “As a mum of two autistic young people with learning difficulties, there weren’t many options available to me. Mrs Wallis went to America to learn about the Son-Rise Program, an alternative way of teaching and caring for people with autism which engenders a “love of learning” from them. “Because it’s such a vibrant setting, people really enjoy working here and they love Stevie and Laura. “Most have been with us for more than six years, which is unheard of in what they call the care world. Mrs Wallis, who is an executive coach, said: “Facilitators are what you would probably call carers but we don’t call them that. With a sensory garden and infrared sauna, the house has everything they might need and there are always plenty of other people there with 20 “facilitators” who work around the clock with the siblings. Laura, 22, and Stevie, 20, have been living together in their brightly coloured house in Watlington since their mother moved out two years ago to live with her husband. The show is part of Project Dreamlife, an initiative set up by their mother, Davina Wallis, and her friend Lindsey Howard-Dean. The pair, who like to experiment with different textiles and colours, have been helped by Alan Fleming, a former palliative care nurse who trained in fine art. These include a series of seasonal landscapes and a variety of nature-based works. Laura and Stevie Bannister are presenting more than 10 pieces they completed last year at the Arts Hub in Watlington Methodist Church. TWO siblings with autism are exhibiting their art at Watlington library as part of a project their mother created to help them live more fulfilling and independent lives.
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