When Sue Murdoch began caring full time for a grandchild with autism more than a decade ago, she found it difficult to connect with the right kinds of support within the Lithgow community.
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She shared her own experience on her Facebook page, ‘Nanna’s Touch’ and found that she was increasingly contacted by grandparents, carers and parents who were facing the same problems she had.
“It was a non-clinical and non-professional approach,” she said.
“I shared my life experience and people started inboxing me, asking me for personal support.”
From there she went on to form support groups for people with disabilities and their families: an increasingly popular fortnightly sewing group and, more recently, a cooking class called Ma’s Kitchen. There is also a support group which meets at Me3.
“We’re going to split the Thursday sewing class, one for beginners and one for the more experienced who want to learn more, do more complicated things,” Sue said.
Last year, an expo was launched as a platform to connect services to the people that needed them.
Sue said it came out of a wish that there was a list of providers that could be made public for families to access.
“From there, the idea grew into this expo,” she said.
In 2017, the Lithgow Accessible Lifestyle Expo is back at Hoskins Uniting Church this Saturday, October 21 from 10am-2pm.
A new feature of this year’s event will be a Reading Room set up by Lithgow Library.
The day will include market stalls, face painting, a ukulele performance at lunch time and a performance from the Jedi academy. The Lions Club will be running a barbecue and Ma’s Kitchen will be serving sandwiches, tea, coffee and cake.
Money raised on the day will help to fund the disability support groups.
Sue said the aim of the event was to providing positive outcomes and access to support for people in the community living with a disability and their families.
“A lot of the stallholders for this year’s event are services that are targeting Lithgow on a regular basis and that’s a really good thing,” Sue said.
“They’ve all got different roles and, as people with disabilities age, their needs will change, which might see them moving from one service to another.”
Sue thanked Lithgow City Council, which provided a grant to support the 2017 event.