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Community issues and AS

longman

How effectively is autism and aspergers represented in community forums at local authority level?

There are a lot of fora that deal with equality issues across a spectrum of subjects, some quite unusual but important nonetheless, that are addressed at local council level to ensure different groups have a say in policy decisions affecting communities. These include things like disability and housing, disability disclosure in relation to housing services and adult support, social, sport and entertainment access in relation to disability.

They are used to air and gauge public response to policy changes and new systems.

Many groups send representatives to these. In my experience autism is seldom represented. This seems to be because the main local autism groups are around children and dealt with through specific meetings. Lack of resources to provide people and lack of identified need to address adult needs seem to be prominent reasons for non-representation.

I've done a lot of this over the years (committees get me out and involved, as long as they are civilised and well-managed as my heatring and speech coordination suffers when lots of people are talking at once).

When I can I try to speak up for autism issues where relevant, but I'm not representing anyone. I feel that autism isn't being picked up where it should be because of this lack of representation, for example funding opportunities ior changes to services that could have a knock on effect on people on the spectrum.

Is there any strategy for improving the visibility of autism at local authority level?

Parents

  • Hi Sarah,

    Thanks for responding to this. Unfortunately there are very few such boards set up and my county council certainly hasn't got one.

    I keep trying to find out what my county council is doing but am "hitting a brick wall".

    I emailed the Adult Care team and the chair of social services committee 11th December but have had neither acknowledgement or reply. I asked why the Autism Spectrum Team only covered up to age 19 and why adults with autism were unspecified under Adult Care Services. There is nothing about adult autism on their website, and autism seems to fall in a gap between learning disability and mental health.

    When NAS put up a rougues gallery of non respondent councils two years ago mine was amongst the zero responses. When NAS asked us to write to the Chair of the appropriate committee of our local councils, I waited months for a response which just said they were working on it. I subsequently asked who had been appointed to lead initiatives following the act and was told the appointment was unconfirmed and I couldn't be told who.

    My county council has made drastic cuts in many areas of disabled support services to save money. The committees I was on for over a decade up to a year ago were set up by the town council. However Autism provision comes under the County's juristiction.

    Unfortunately the Autism Act implementation seems difficult to ratify or enforce. It would perhaps be useful to know what others have experienced.

Reply

  • Hi Sarah,

    Thanks for responding to this. Unfortunately there are very few such boards set up and my county council certainly hasn't got one.

    I keep trying to find out what my county council is doing but am "hitting a brick wall".

    I emailed the Adult Care team and the chair of social services committee 11th December but have had neither acknowledgement or reply. I asked why the Autism Spectrum Team only covered up to age 19 and why adults with autism were unspecified under Adult Care Services. There is nothing about adult autism on their website, and autism seems to fall in a gap between learning disability and mental health.

    When NAS put up a rougues gallery of non respondent councils two years ago mine was amongst the zero responses. When NAS asked us to write to the Chair of the appropriate committee of our local councils, I waited months for a response which just said they were working on it. I subsequently asked who had been appointed to lead initiatives following the act and was told the appointment was unconfirmed and I couldn't be told who.

    My county council has made drastic cuts in many areas of disabled support services to save money. The committees I was on for over a decade up to a year ago were set up by the town council. However Autism provision comes under the County's juristiction.

    Unfortunately the Autism Act implementation seems difficult to ratify or enforce. It would perhaps be useful to know what others have experienced.

Children
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