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?
