Caron Atwood
7.4.1965 - 11.2.2008
Caron... Your spirit, kindness and love of life will live on forever
Caron Atwood died in February 2008 following a battle against bowel cancer. She is sadly missed by everyone at Cleveland AFASIC. Caron established Cleveland AFASIC in 1999 and always demonstrated incredible passion towards her cause of helping young people with communication difficulties. This led to Caron becoming a Trustee of the Board for National AFASIC. Her enthusiasm and zest cannot be replaced, but as a group we intend to ensure that her work continues.
A tribute can be seen in this Middlesbrough Evening Gazette article.
The words below were written by Caron and this will always be a reminder of her work:
"Speech and language problems are a hidden disability, and never receive the oxygen of publicity that other areas of disability attract. Speech therapy has always been classed as a Cinderella service, yet research is proving that it is vital to early years education and is grossly under funded and under resourced. My personal aim as chairman of Cleveland Afasic and the North East Parents Representative is to gain publicity and help as many children and parents as I can by working with speech and language therapists and other professionals, so we can highlight the problems and work as a team. Cleveland Afasic was set up in 1999 after the group had been meeting for a year. A Group of four regular parents then decided to become a formal group. We ask professionals to attend some of our meetings and we also have social events to unwind and help each other with our problems. The group is learning all the time and we are not afraid of criticism by anyone, in fact we are forward thinking. We work closely with all professionals from health to education and I hope we are giving a positive role of Afasic in the North East. I also would like to think that maybe our speakers learn something from talking to us and no one yet has left early! We also do not exclude any of the family and when we have days out everyone is invited because if we can help, we will. Our siblings are also very important as they need our support too and they tend to help each other; our children range from babies to teenagers. We are also involved with National Afasic and many of our members are involved with other groups. We are very positive and have a good sense of humour and help one another through all the laughter and tears which having a special needs child brings. Above all we are determined to prove that our children have something very special. If you feel that we may be of some help contact us; you never know the whole family may enjoy it and there will always be someone in the group who shares your problem, because we understand." Caron Atwood 2004