Published on 12, July, 2020
The helpline will stop taking calls from 19 May 2021 and will close completely on 9 June 2021.
We will reply to all emails requesting advice received up to that date, but we will no longer reply to any new emails after that date.
https://www.autism.org.uk/what-we-do/news/adapting-our-work-due-to-coronavirus
this means we may be the only support for newbies from 9th June !!!!!!
I am still reading to understand what is going on
“We have contracts with local councils to fund our social care and education services. But we are facing a £1 million gap in our finances for our wider work largely due to cancelled fundraising and training events during the pandemic.”
“This has affected every part of our charity, except our education and social care services.”
Explanation:
The NAS is first and foremost a government service provider. Nearly 90% of its income comes from local authorities and 99.999% of this money is ringfenced to provide specific services for specific individuals – mostly children who fit the criteria of NAS schools and people who require residential care services.
Everything else is provided by the charity side of the NAS, using money obtained from fundraising and donations. This is a secondary function of the NAS, and where the services are being axed.
Therefore, the honourable thing the NAS should do is realise that they may be very good at being a government service provider but also accept they are ineffective at being a charity, so they should deregister as a charity and become a business instead.
It would be dishonest for the NAS to continue as a charity, in the traditional sense of the word, if it clearly is not their main function (from a financial perspective at least) or if they are unable to operate as an effective charity. Open up the market for the creation of a new charity or support group for people with ASD.
Peter is right when he says “We really ought to start helping ourselves (each other), because no one else is going to”. My local AS support group will be holding a meeting to discuss matters relating to this in the near future.
go ahead