About Infinity Friends Athlone
Who we are and why we do what we do.
Who are we?
Infinity Friends is a social club for autistic children and youth in Athlone and surrounding areas, now affiliated with Youth Work Midlands. The children are aged between 4 and 18 years old and support continues through to adulthood.
The club was originally set up by Claire Earley and Hilda Duignan in September 2022, with the aim of providing a safe, inclusive environment where members can be supported. There are now more than 50 children attending 5 clubs with many more on a waiting list.
The club aims to foster growth and confidence in the childrens’ abilities and skills through participation in community based activities, leisure activities, self care activities etc
Our Mission
It is our mission to promote inclusion and support diversity in the town of Athlone through working with other agencies, clubs, groups, schools, businesses and more.
Infinity friends, while supporting the children, also support their families and carers through peer support, a parents Facebook page and some much needed social activities of their own!
How and why Infinity Friends started.
Infinity Friends was built from a group Claire created called Autism Parents, to bring the autistic community together, but why did it all start?
Claire started Autism Parents with the hope of bringing the local autistic community together to campaign for services and school places in Athlone and surrounding areas. Hilda came on board to help with admin and organising events. They soon became a great team. Claire has one autistic child, Sophia, aged 10 and Hilda has two autistic chilren, Edie aged 7 and Evan aged 5.
Claire and Hilda did a lot of shouting about the lack of services in our local community for autistic children. Claire’s daughter Sophia struggled socially and needed a place outside school to make new friends. To help resolve this problem they decided to take matters into their own hands and opened a social club for autistic children.
“We are community funded and rely on the local support to keep us open. We started small with just 10 members but quickly realised the need for more clubs and more age groups.”
Our Volunteers
We have 8 volunteers on our committee who each have a role of helping out at the clubs. We rota the clubs between all 8.
Experience
Claire is a trained Special Needs Assistant and Hilda has a degree in Early Childhood care along with SNA training. Hilda works as an AIMS support worker in a local pre school.
Infinity Friends Community Group Of the Year Winners 2023
