The forum, which began as a small meeting group for parents in a café, moved into the West of Scotland Autism and Aspergers centre in Renton in June and has already been nominated for a Provost Civic Award.

Founder Angie Davis told the Reporter she turned to another mum of an autistic child after her son’s diagnosis and the idea grew from there.

She said: “After Jack’s diagnosis I didn’t know who to turn to. I knew a girl who had a son with autism so I messaged her on Facebook and after we met up we decided there had to be something in the area for parents like us. When your child gets diagnosed, you get a book and that’s it.

“There’s no further support, so we decided to have a meeting for parents in a café. The first one only five people turned up, but as it went on we got too big for the café and had to find somewhere else.” The forum currently has 34 family memberships, including 58 children aged three to 21, and 54 adults. After a brief stint in the Carman Centre in which they were told they could stay for years, only to be told months later the centre had to close, councillor Michelle McGinty, education services spokeswoman, put forward a motion to enable the group to use the current centre in Renton for a year.

Now the centre is open seven days a week for parents, children, and siblings to find support.

Gary Miller, who runs the centre along with fellow volunteers, said: “Everyone who helps out here is a parent first and foremost and we volunteer for the centre. When we came in here it was a building site, the council had made it wind and water tight but it wasn’t anywhere near what we required, so it was all hands on deck. We had people painting, cleaning and trying to organise furniture.” “Now we have something on every day after school, youth groups for different ages and support groups for parents. It’s good to bounce your ideas and problems off other people. We’re as much here for the parents as the children. We’ve had speakers attend our autism based seminars. We’ve also run courses on food hygiene, first aid and stress management.” Gary said although running the centre is stressful, the support from the community has been invaluable.

He added: “We get no financial help from anyone and we raise the funds ourselves. We apply for certain grants and funding streams but its down to us and the community mostly.

“Last year we had Kiltwalk, craft fairs, we’ve had people jumping out of planes for us, abseiling, and sponsored walks. The community back us 100 per cent and that’s important to us. We don’t want to burden people either so you have to find a balance.” Autism has become better known in the last 10 years, however Angie said there is still work to be done to raise awareness.

She said: “We’re making a lot of inroads, people are seeing what we do, and looking into autism a bit more. We’re working with council in the build up to world autism awareness day. We meet with the education department every six weeks. There’s more can be done in schools, but we bring this up in meetings – we can see they are progressing.” In June the forum will decide if they can stay in their current building.

Gary said: “I have no doubt we have changed people’s lives here. You see new parents and remember how isolated and alone you felt when your family had the diagnosis, so we want to support people and let them know they’re not alone. We do good work here and we want to continue.”