Autism can challenge traditional parenting styles, causing parents to feel deskilled and disempowered, especially when little information or support is available to them (Dunn et al., 2001) and impacting on parental well-being and quality of life (Benjak, 2011; Benjak et al., 2009; Mouzourou et al., 2011). The provision of accurate information about autism and teaching parents how to adapt their parenting using good autism practices has been shown to be effective in improving personal, educational and social outcomes for individuals on the autism spectrum and their families (Green et al., 2010;Kasari et al., 2010).

 However, the literature suggests that autism awareness is generally low within the Balkans and south-eastern Europe (Demirok & Baglama, 2015; Stankova & Trajkovski, 2010) and parent education programmes or training opportunities  are extremely limited or non-existent (Delfos, 2010; Kulla & Gjedia, 2015; Salomone et al. 2015).

 A three year project has been established with funding from the European Commission’s Erasmus+ programme. With a lifespan from September 2015 to August 2018, this is a project in which teachers, academics, family members and non-governmental organisations from five European countries - Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and the United Kingdom - are working together in a strategic partnership in order to:

• develop a core curriculum and ecologically valid parent education materials and methods regarding parent education for families with children on the autism spectrum.
  • This has been informed by a review of the literature regarding the impact of autism on the family; a review of extant parent models including (among others) the ‘TEACCH’ structured teaching approach (Mesibov et al., 2005) and the UK National Autistic Society’s EarlyBird model (Shields, 2001); and by surveying parents in the three countries concerning their perspectives. The curriculum and training materials are being designed in partnership with local trainers and parents to ensure that both content and process are  locally appropriate and ecologically valid
• establish parent education for families living with autism in the three south-eastern European countries
  • A minimum of 18 training events (six per country) will take place over the project lifespan
  • Quantitative and qualitative methods are being used to evaluate the impact of the provision of parent education on parental self-efficacy and quality of life
  • Sustainability planning will ensure that parent education continues after the project ends
• share the curriculum and materials with stakeholders throughout Europe.
  • Project materials and other outputs will be available from its website.

 Attempting to provide education about autism for parents and families without first seeking to ascertain their own views was considered as both inappropriate and unhelpful. Therefore a key first action of the partnership was to undertake a survey of families living with autism in Croatia, Cyprus and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia with regard to their perceptions of their needs and priorities in this area. This presentation reports on the process and findings of this survey and discusses how these findings have informed the activity of the partnership.

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