So I’ve been running this website (http://areyoualien.uk) that try’s to promote autistic rights and help autistic people defend their own rights. Right now a lot of its material is based on my own experience of suing a student union but really it needs to diversify.
I’d be interested in hearing if anyone here would like to write an article or two for the site, perhaps based on your own experience?
I’m aiming at providing legal information to people trying to defend their own rights (or those of a loved one) so topics it would need to cover would be
- how legislation like the equality act might apply to the sort of situations autistic people face.
- How to argue your case with those stepping on your rights.
- How to access mediation and support for your dispute
- How to access legal aid
- Where appropriate how to bring legal action as a litigant in person.
Areas I’d like to cover would be
- education
- In both schools, further education and higher education.
- Both for parents and students over school leaving age
- Working through the OIA / OfS
- Bring action to both a tribunal or the county court
- Personal autonomy for those detained / subject to restrictions because of their autism
- Focusing mostly on the court of protection / mental health tribunals
- The right to legal aid is more extensive here so the focus is much more on how to get a good lawyer and push forward to your day in court.
- The right to a family / reproduction
- There is overlap with the above material on autonomy because people who’ve had their mental capacity to consent to sex / marrage or take reproductive decisions about their own body challenged are also often subject to some degree of deprivation of Liberty.
- However there is a real concern about the suitability of autistic people as parents being challenged in the family courts.
- So a separate document on challenging decisions about custody in the family courts and reproductive autonomy in the court of protection is warranted.
- The work place
- This would cover the very broad rage of issues autistic people struggle with in the work place
- as well as the fairly well established pathway through ACAS mediation through to employment tribunal.
The existing material probably already covers a lot of the process of challenging discrimination by service providers but it was formulated with student unions in mind so if anyone wants to take that material and adapt / expand it into something more general they’d be welcome to.
Is anyone interested?
