Seeing a world where people with additional needs will have the same level of opportunity as everyone else
‘Spectrum Talks; drawing daily from a fount of personal and professional experience…’
‘Spectrum Talks; drawing daily from a fount of personal and professional experience…’
'Sharing what embracing our differences really means for us all...'
About Ciara
Hellooo! I’m Ciara Jones and I hail from the lovely city of Dublin originally, but have had the great joy of living in another lovely city, Liverpool, for over twenty years now.
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Amongst the much bric-a-brac of life accumulated over the years (both literally and metaphorically), I am also the proud 'owner' (!) of three young adult children and a lovely husband.
Now when said husband and I embarked on ‘The adventures of Parenting’ over twenty years ago (book to follow?) nowhere in my wildest imagination did I think it would propel me into creating Spectrum Talks at this time. For Spectrum Talks has been born solely as a result of my over-whelming wish to have a truly HONEST conversation about raising children with additional needs.
I’ve had no choice in debating the need for its creation, that’s the actual truth of the matter, especially from about Chapter 3 onwards in ‘The adventures of Parenting’, when our beautiful son, Cormac, began to share with us (and the whole world too) his particularly, gloriously, unique personality traits…
Work with me
I warmly welcome opportunities to contribute on panel discussions, radio and podcast interviews to help keep the conversation going in broader society, about what sharing our differences really means for us all, along with sharing my personal insights of raising an autistic child using empowerment and humour every step of the way. I look forward to hearing from you.
Blog &
Podcast
In 2016 I started capturing in a blog, some every day personal experiences from the teachings of Cormac...please do note, I refer to Cormac as 'LS' (Lovely Son) and when I now read back on some of my earlier blogs, I use different references than perhaps I would use now, eg. 'has autism' 'is autistic'...terminology can be a big discussion in itself I find...I have learned so much (and continue to) on my journey here, that I now find that some of my thoughts and views expressed a few years ago have grown in a new direction by now. At the heart of all my work though, always lies a desire to talk openly about my experience of raising an autistic child with very significant communication challenges, in the hope that this conversation may help others on a similar path.
In 2024 I have plans to start a podcast for Spectrum Talks, where I will be chatting very personally to other parents/carers who are raising children with additional needs and really getting to the heart of what this experience is like….a conversation that is NOT to be missed! Watch this space for the link to tune in…
‘Empowerment…ALWAYS the starting point on the journey to change…!’