Abandoned electrical shop to become parent support group
2:30pm Thursday 4th October 2012 in News By Hermione Wright
A mother-of-two desperate to support parents with autistic children is taking the matter into her own hands.
Lynn Saunders, who grew up in London Road in Enfield Town, believes there is little on offer in Enfield which provides a space for parents to meet, share experiences and relax.
The 41-year-old, who lives in Waltham Abbey in Essex, blew caution to the wind and is renovating a former electrical wholesalers in Browns Garden Centre in Theobalds Park Road in Crews Hill.
She said: “There is such a lack of support groups for these parents, there is nowhere for them to go.
"I have been thinking about it for two years but never had the money or found a place with parking or where the rates weren’t too high.
“It has fallen into my lap out of the blue, I wasn’t really ready for it, but this place came up and I thought, ‘why not – just do it.’”
Ms Saunders, who is working every day to renovate the empty building, aims to open the Atlantis Spiritual Support Centre on Saturday, October 20.
She hopes the group will provide rest bite for parents of children with conditions including obsessive compulsive disorder, autism, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder and dyspraxia.
Although she is paying the rent out of her own pocket, she needs to source funding for therapies for the parents, including massages, readings, meditations and drumming circles.
She was inspired to create the group after a friend of hers, who has a son with obsessive compulsive disorder, was complaining about the lack of support groups in the borough.
She is no stranger to hard work, as she organises an annual Come Away with the Faeries festival in Enfield Town Park with two friends every summer.
