Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi everyone,
I'm autistic and a current undergraduate student at a UK university. I'm leading a volunteering project in affiliation with my university called 'Autism Mentoring'. The project involves going into local secondary schools and mentoring autistic students from those schools about things like higher education, careers/job thoughts, study skills, and general autism stuff.
I'm trying to develop the project and would really appreciate anyone's thoughts. Specifically, what sorts of resources shall I include and/or create for the mentors to use with their mentee? Do you have any advice on how the sessions could be delivered, how often, how long for? What age group do you think would be best to focus on? And if you have any other thoughts then I'd love to hear them.
I hope this post is allowed, but of course, admin please delete if not.
Thank you everyone!
My initial thoughts about this are that so many people when concerning Autism and mental health issues in general is that so many people in wider society, given the NAS survey that I just completed, not only are obsessed with “their way as being the only correct way” and point blank refuse to listen to nor really understand what we as autistic people want and/or need, because they believe that they alone know what’s best for us, a similar struggle with the early struggles of LGBT people - most people cling to traditional approaches of dealing with mental health issues in general and autism in particular, totally ignoring the newer autism research from Australia - many people of the traditional mindset believe that people with autism must never be allowed to live alone without a live in carer or mentor and that the only way to manage autism is by means of ultra strict discipline (stricter even than for children) and they believe that the Catholic Religious orders of priests and nuns should take over this role, ideally in a Catholic religious setting and they further believe and maintain that any other view is dismissed by them as “nonsense”
IrishInManchesterUK said:are obsessed with “their way as being the only correct way” and point blank refuse to listen to nor really understand what we as autistic people want and/or need, because they believe that they alone know what’s best for us,
I agree with this - autists tend to have fairly rigid moral compasses and also many lack empathy for other perspectives which compounds the issue.
It is our place as mentors to encourage them to make the effort to at least consider the perspective of others, even when this may not be the doctrine that the people who "hired" us want us to portray.
There are a lot of religious schools where I am and they are not very progressive so we have to take great care in what we are allowed to say is acceptable. This is why I have the coffee shop sessions where all discussions are fair game.
Organised religion is still one of my pet hates but I do it for the people I can help rather than the organisation behind it.
I hope that more and more people who openly identify as autistic are known in the community and the stigma that goes with is is steadily washed away.