Founded in 1997 by a group of parents, TreeHouse is the national charity for autism education. TreeHouse is working to transform the lives of the one in every 100 children in the UK who are diagnosed with autism, a lifelong neurological disorder which affects a person’s ability to communicate, interact with others and use imagination.

TreeHouse has a number of services. The first is a day school which provides one-to-one education for 80 children and young people with autism, aged 3 to 19. The school is pioneering new approaches to autism education, with transformational effect, and is an exemplar demonstrating what young people can achieve if they access appropriate education. TreeHouse also runs a national centre which aims to increase the quantity and quality of autism education provision nationwide. TreeHouse achieves this by offering training and consultancy to autism practitioners, supporting groups of parents throughout the country and lobbying and campaigning actively.

The Barbara Ward Children’s Foundation is a long term friend of TreeHouse. We initially enabled TreeHouse to purchase a mini bus, a vital resource used by the charity to take children, who find it difficult to cope with public transport, on a range of outings. We have also funded TreeHouse’s very first physical education teacher and more recently provided major funding for essential speech and language therapy.