On Saturday I participated in an extremely helpful meeting with fellow moms and dads raising children with ASD involved in a support group aptly named: Warrior Parents of Dallas. The group, founded run by Jennifer Talley Keefe, offers excellent monthly meetings with guest speakers and ongoing support via email newsletters and an active Facebook presence. While the group is primarily made up of mothers, there are several active fathers and even a few dedicated therapists who attend on a regular basis. This past Saturday, Jennifer organized a post-conference “roundtable” where parents who attended the Autism One conference in Chicago last week reported our “Top 5 Take-Aways,” shared our impressions and answered questions. The room was packed and the response on Facebook from those who attended was extremely positive. As such, I decided to pass along this stellar idea so that interested parents, therapists and educators across the globe can consider adopting a similar model in the future!

I think that this model is well suited to larger conferences where there are several tracks and multiple sessions taking place at the same time. However, I will add that even though some of us attended the same sessions (or watched them via live streaming video); during the roundtable it was apparent that many of us took different important points away from the same exact sessions…so I think that a post-conference roundtable could work well for any size conference or workshop with important topics being presented.

What you’ll need:
• Interested & willing members – as long as there are 2-3 members who attended a conference and are willing to share the information, presenters, tips, books, etc. that most caught their attention, plus an additional 3-5 members to listen and ask questions - you’re in business! On Saturday, five of us who attended Autism One shared our “Top 5 Take-Aways” with a room full of parents and therapists (~20-25) who couldn’t attend the conference in Chicago for various reasons.
• A place to meet – Jennifer has teamed up with a local supermarket (which happens to sell many GFCF foods) to utilize a free meeting room each month, but groups might consider looking for free meeting rooms in libraries, churches or even simply meeting at someone’s home. A small group could probably meet in a restaurant or coffee house, but it sure was nice to have a quiet room with tables/chairs, free from distractions.
• 2-3 hours – Jennifer had our room booked for two hours. We did not get through all of our points because there was such lively, thoughtful discussion and questions…I think it could’ve continued on for another hour had the room been available; many of us continued our conversations after leaving the meeting room so the next group could start their meeting.
• A moderator – Jennifer did a lovely job of asking each one of us to share one take-away at a time and allowed everyone to chime-in with their thoughts or questions on the topic. She also made sure to pay careful attention to the time and kept the discussion moving along.
• Handouts (optional) – Many of us prepared a list of our Top 5, but this is totally optional. Since I work better if I have a summary in front of me, I simply prepared that and made copies. Jennifer advertised within the group that the first 15 attendees would receive her handouts, and when the room ended up being packed, she also offered to put notes in her next newsletter and follow up with attendees who did not receive hand-outs but were interested in receiving them digitally.

That’s it – 4 steps to organizing a successful post-conference roundtable for your support group! Let me know if you have any questions or want to make additional suggestions below about conducting such a meeting.

Here’s to continued learning and sharing within our community!

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Leigh Attaway Wilcox is a writer and editor for the projectLD family of companies. Leigh is Assistant Editor of the internationally acclaimed AutismSpot.com and her work can be found on many of the pLDNetworks sites. Leigh is the author of ALL BETTER: A Touch-and-Heal Book published by Piggy Toes Press in 2007. Leigh lives in North Texas with her husband and young son who loves reading, LEGOs, Mario Bros. and also happens to live with Asperger's Syndrome, an Autism Spectrum Disorder.