There are several needs among parents of children with autism for parent respite and social time remaining unmet. Many institutes focus on providing autistic children to support and opportunities for a better life. Most of such institutions are run by governments and local fundraising groups that require volunteers to help with the workload.
The institutions can use undergraduate student volunteers as a potential strategy for meeting some of the previously unmet needs of autistic children. The researchers convened separate focus groups for parents and undergraduates to assess feasibility, comfort, reservations, and mutual interest in this approach. Both parents and students identified common ground over undergraduate volunteer services and described the boundaries of participation within which they felt comfortable. Identifying boundaries will make it easier to craft volunteer programs that will provide better support to the autistic children within the comfortability level of the students and their parents. They also define the desirable extent of involvement for undergraduate student volunteers.
The study concluded that student-provided respite care is feasible to support parents raising children with autism and for students seeking volunteer and career-orientation experiences.
Reference: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1088357615610112
