• Replies 3 replies
  • Subscribers 81 subscribers
  • Views 965 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Related
Hints and tips
  • To quote someone's message, first select/highlight the relevant text, and then use the Quote button that appears
  • To "mention" someone, type @ followed by the start of the forum name, and choose from the list; that person will get a notification of being mentioned

Best autism charities?

Ultramarine

Hello,

If I was going to try and fundraise for an autism charity, does anyone know which are the most effective ones which help people the most?

Some that I've read about are:

- National Autistic Society

- Ambitious About Autism (for children and young people)

- Autistica (seem to do research on autism, to find out more about it, improve diagnosis and so on)

I've read about these charities and others on the internet, but I was just wondering if anyone knows more, or has direct experience of any of them.

Many thanks!

  • in reply to Ultramarine

    Simon Baron Cohen is one of the researcher who believed that autism and ADHD could not be comorbid and his entire research has set back autism research nearly three decades because of his own gender biases.

  • in reply to Blue

    Hi Blue, thanks very much for your honest opinion.  I'm glad that I asked the question, because I really have very little knowledge or experience of autism charities.  I will bear what you said in mind.   I wonder if anyone else has any other thoughts.

    Regarding research charities, I know there's also a research institute in Cambridge led by Simon Baron Cohen, but from what I understand, he promoted the 'extreme male brain' theory of autism, which has led to many women being misdiagnosed.

  • Honestly it depends on who you want the money raised for and spent on. Honestly all three of those organisations are terrible your honestly better of raising money for either an smaller autism charity or one that is more proactive charities in your local community. 

    The National Autism Society in my experience does very little for autistic individuals outside England's major cities like london, manchester,  Birmingham & Bristol. They tend to focus on Autistic individuals with comorbid intellectual disabilities forgetting everyone else on the spectrum who has average or above intelligence. Despite them not operating in rural locations they operate a few residential  homes in the east of england and the two i have visited and where horrible and complete unacceptable.

    Ambitious About Autism isn't proactive enough and basically does nothing but repeat what the national autism society already does when it comes to lobbying the government for change and being extremely unsuccessful. If you contact them directly like most autism charities of similar nature you'll find that they do not assist or support autistic individuals to find or maintain work. They often fail to know of any support outside yet again London, manchester,  Birmingham & Bristol.  They are very poor at teaching autism awareness because the fail to include & listen to autistic individuals  throughout their organisation often disregarding autistic candidate for employment positions in their organisation.

    Autistica is a bad as autism speaks, they haven't made any great strides in researching Autism in nearly a decade, they yet again fail to provide proactive support. They have backed and endorsed news articles which have given some very false or inconclusive information. 

    these organisations are not doing enough to assist the majority of autistic individuals who are capable of work or education back into sustainable employment and are not proactive preventing those with additional needs ending up in mental health hospitals or reduced the massive number of autism related suicides.