Support groups across the region
The hardest part of finding a support group is never the driving — it’s not knowing whether the room is for you. So every entry below says plainly who it’s for, how often it meets, whether your kids can come, and what it costs. Sorted by area, closest to home first.
●Last reviewed August 2026 · details change — confirm with official sources
How to read this page
Each entry names who it serves — parents and caregivers, siblings, or autistic adults themselves. Everything here is free unless a price is listed. Schedules move around more than any website admits, so when a listing says “check the page,” that’s us being honest rather than vague: look before you drive.
Murfreesboro & Rutherford County
Our Special Village — every Wednesday, 5:00 PM
Who it’s for: parents and caregivers, any diagnosis or no diagnosis, any age of child. When: every Wednesday at 5 PM, no season, no session, no end date. Where: We Rock the Spectrum, 820 N Thompson Ln, Murfreesboro. Cost: free, and there’s no signup — you can decide at 4:45 that today’s the day.
Kids are welcome — the part most groups can’t offer, and the reason many parents never make it out the door. Bring them: they get supervised open play in the sensory gym at a discounted rate while you sit with people who already know what a bad week looks like. Nobody here will ask you to explain the stimming, the runner, the feeding tube, or why you’re crying. More about the group
Second location coming fall 2026 at Little Luminaries Therapy Services, 1810 Ward Dr, Suite 101, Murfreesboro. Day and time are still being set — the newsletter hears first, before it goes anywhere else.
The Self-Care Spot — two groups worth knowing about
A neurodivergent-affirming Murfreesboro practice running a group for late-identified autistic adults — the people who figured it out at 34, or 52, and have nowhere to put that — and a separate support group for parents and caregivers of autistic and PDA kids, where demand avoidance is treated as a nervous system doing its job rather than a discipline problem.
Schedules aren’t posted reliably online — call for the current cadence, cost, and whether a group has space. No childcare.
Bolton Counseling Services
Not a drop-in peer group — this is professional counseling — but worth listing because Kevin Bolton names parents of children with special needs as a population he works with, alongside autistic adults. Counseling, EMDR, and music therapy. If what you need is one steady hour that’s actually yours, this is that kind of support. By appointment; fees aren’t published, so ask when you call.
Regional & virtual
These serve all of Middle Tennessee, and several meet online — which turns “I can’t get a sitter” into a non-issue.
Autism Tennessee — Connect, Online Spectrum Families & Teen Connect
Who it’s for: a different group for nearly everyone in the house — Connect groups run by and for autistic adults, Online Spectrum Families for parents and caregivers, and Teen Connect meetups for autistic teens themselves. Cadence: monthly, with the schedule published on their Connect page. Cost: free.
Down Syndrome Association of Middle Tennessee (DSAMT)
Who it’s for: families of people with Down syndrome, at every age. They run county-level meetups — so you’re meeting families who live near you, not just near Nashville — plus Mom’s dinners, which are exactly what they sound like and exactly as necessary as they sound. Dates, cost, and whether kids come along vary by event, so read the calendar listing.
GiGi’s Playhouse Nashville
Who it’s for: individuals with Down syndrome and their families. An achievement center with a program calendar rather than one monthly meeting — families tend to find their people through the programs. Check the Nashville page for the current schedule and cost.
Family Voices of Tennessee — parent-to-parent
Who it’s for: parents of children with any disability or special health care need. This one isn’t a room at all — it’s a match. Parent-to-parent connects you with another parent who has already been where you are, which is sometimes the only kind of expert that helps at 11 PM. A good fit if a group setting is too much right now, or if your child’s situation is rare enough that a general group can’t meet it.
The one for brothers and sisters: Vanderbilt Sibshops
Siblings carry a version of this that nobody asks about, and there’s exactly one program in this region built for them. Sibshops at the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center is a free monthly program for siblings of kids with disabilities — Saturdays, roughly August through April, in Nashville. It looks like games and pizza; it feels like the first time your other kid meets someone whose house works the way theirs does.
Email VanderbiltSibShops@vanderbilt.edu for dates and registration, or see the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center. If the Nashville drive is too far, the national Sibshop finder lists other chapters.
Franklin & Williamson County
Two churches west of us run real parent programming — and, crucially, respite events, where trained volunteers take the kids for a few hours so parents get an evening. You don’t have to be a member to go.
Southall Church — Special Needs Ministry
Who it’s for: parents and caregivers, through their parent support groups; kids are served separately by 1:1 buddies and a large sensory room on Sundays. They also host respite events through the year. No fixed monthly cadence published — call for the next group and the next respite night, and ask about cost when you register.
Brentwood Baptist — Embrace
Who it’s for: parents, through Embrace’s parent groups — plus respite events staffed by trained, background-checked buddies. The ministry itself serves birth through adults, so this is one of the few places that doesn’t quietly age your kid out.
Group and respite dates are posted on their page; check there for the current schedule and registration.
Where we’re thin — and it’s Smyrna
Here’s the honest part: we could not verify a single Smyrna-specific support group for parents, siblings, or autistic adults. Not one. Smyrna families are driving to Murfreesboro or Nashville for every option on this page, and that’s a real cost in a life that already has too many drives in it. The closest thing in town is LifePoint Church’s Connection Crew — a Sunday and Wednesday inclusion ministry for kids through adults, which is genuinely good, but isn’t a parent support group.
If you run one, sit in one, or remember one that used to meet — tell us. We’ll list it, we’ll show up to it, and we’ll stop writing this paragraph. Same goes for any group above whose day, time, or cost has changed since we checked.
Don’t track all this yourself
Schedules shift, respite nights get announced two weeks out, and the group you needed in March meets on a Saturday you never heard about. The weekly newsletter carries that week’s support-group meetings — ours and everyone else’s — so you read one email instead of checking nine pages. Get the weekly digest · Full events calendar · Come to a Wednesday