I've put this at the top of the updates this month as it's so important.

Understanding Autism North West (UANW) are the only free therapeutic service in Lancashire specifically for autistic individuals and families and they provide over 1,000 sessions of counselling every year.  As if that wasn't valuable enough on it's own, every one of their fully qualified counsellors are neurodivergent themselves.

With  94% of autistic people experiencing anxiety and 83% experiencing depression, UANW provide a hugely valuable and rare service (to which you can self-refer) and they receive no funding at all, relying on charitable donations.  Anything I can do personally or via this group to support them and their work - I will do.

As such, I want to promote the art exhibition that UANW are putting on as part of the 'Behind The Mask' Campaign.  It runs between 1st and 30th April at Haworth Art Gallery, daily between midday and 4pm (closed Mondays and Tuesdays).  The exhibition will showcase art from a variety of autistic creators so please - if you can - do go along and enjoy this wonderful event and support UANW at the same time.

For more information on Understanding Autism North West and the art exhibition, please click here.

Almost immediately following last months update, we had a flurry of new members joining the group which is great.

At the time of putting these new updates together, I'm about 10 days out of a bad meltdown which has left me exhausted and I've not fully 'come round' from it yet.  It's so frustrating because there are things I want to do but just no capacity to do them.  So, I'm starting gently, here with our March updates and hope that the increase in members continues as it has done.

In the February update, I advised how Clinical Partners had taken over the NHS contract for Autism and ADHD diagnostic services in Lancashire and South Cumbria.  These were services previously provided by Lancashire Autism Service and Action for ASD.  

Folllowing the meeting that took place in January, Clinical Partners said that they would like to work with me to make some resources for older autistic adults.

Some group members have already said that they'd like to be a part of creating something that will be useful to other autistic adults so if you'd also like to get involved, please contact me either by email, contact form here or via FB Messenger.

When this group started last Summer, I asked new members to complete the survey on socialising to gauge what people wanted / needed from a social group.  The survey has closed now, in preparation for a new one (watch this space) and I have collated the final results which are very interesting and in some cases, surprising.

One thing that is obvious and has been mentioned before, is that it will be impossible to fulfil all requirements and all sensory considerations all the time and this is why the meetings will move around by county with the next main meeeting planned to be in Manchester (as we didn't make it there last year).

For a larger, PDF view of the final results of the survey, click here.

Many of you may be aware that this month is World Autism Acceptance Month, culminating with Acceptance Day on Sunday 2nd April.

Whilst of course, I support the concept of raising acceptance levels wholeheartedly, I do not support the National Autistic Society for several reasons.  Personal choice of course. 

However, many people get behind the fundraising efforts and enjoy doing it so it probably won't have escaped your knowledge that the theme this year is the 'Spectrum Colour Challenge'.

If you would like to share a picture of anything that you're doing for inclusion here on the next update, please get in touch and I'll let you know how to send it.  This is just for fun and to show people anything colour themed that you've enjoyed doing during the month.

AS North West has been an active group for around 6 months now.  It's fair to say that the first 2-3 months or so were really busy in terms of people coming to the group both as members that signed up via email and those who joined the Facebook group. The number of new people requesting to join over the past few months has slowed.

Initially, there was quite a lot of publicity via contacts that I have and word of mouth but it's actually quite hard to sustain that after the initial burst unless you look at paid advertising which is not something that I can fund. Equally, it's not always possible to promote yourself on Facebook via other Facebook community groups as many have 'auto-reject' rules set up for posts so if you're not actually from the area they cover, even though you may cover the county or the administrative area, posts are rejected and it becomes too onerous to contact numerous group admins.

That said, I have recently been engaging with a couple of local service providers who have agreed to promote the group so hopefully, there should be an uptick in new members over the coming months. More members should mean more opportunities to socialise when the weather improves.

Some time ago, I got in contact with the Leyland Festival Committee suggesting some ways that accessibility to the event could be improved for autistic people and others with 'hidden' disabilities.  Now - some months later, they have published the accessibility survey which is now live.

It's not often that we're asked directly 'what would actually make a difference for you?'  So please, if you're in Lancashire or you're outside of Lancashire but would consider attending the festival (it takes place in June), then do take the time to complete the short, anonymous survey by clicking the linked festival logo here.  (It's hosted on Facebook so you'll need a Facebook account to access it).

I will be helping to collate and inform on the feedback from the survey so this is an excellent chance to get our voices heard.

On 1st October 2022, Clinical Partners took over the NHS contract for Autism and ADHD diagnostic services in Lancashire and South Cumbria.  These were services previously provided by Lancashire Autism Service and Action for ASD.  

I (and some others) who either work or advocate within the field of autism, attended a meeting with some of the team from Clinical Partners to get some up to date information on the caseloads they've taken over from previous providers and also on the current waiting list. There is too much to put here but if anybody is interested in any aspect of this information, please contact me either using the contact form here or by messaging me via the AS North West Facebook group.

Action for ASD have sadly ceased operating following well over 20 years providing services in Lancashire.  Once again, funding was a key issue in this and sadly, it does serve to highlight the complete lack of post diagnostic support for newly diagnosed autistic adults in the area. Something that Clinical Partners also acknowledged.

I'm involved as a volunteer with my local community radio station and for some time, have been curating a new programme to go on-air with. Although it has been conceived with the idea of being something that those of us on the Spectrum and/or living with mental health conditions will enjoy and relate to, it's also for anyone who enjoys good music, facts, a bit of fun and the odd quiz.

I've already started to interview fellow autists who wanted to share their stories and I'm also looking for people with intense interests in a particular area to explore the joy that following these passions bring and how they can help us navigate the world and manage our wellbeing better. Hearing about the interests of others and the positive effects these interests have, might encourage somebody to dig a bit deeper into something new to them and find something that really resonates.

If you'd like to share your interest with others in this way and have a 10 minute, informal chat with me over the 'phone that we can share for the benefit of others then please get in touch.  You can either use the contact form here or message me via the AS North West Facebook page.

The Socialising Survey was opened last Summer when AS North West started up and we've had some really good data from it which has particularly informed the sensory considerations that need to be borne in mind when setting up meet ups. However, it's time for this survey to close and make way for a new one which I am drafting up which will hopefully seek to inform on how those working in healthcare settings can best accommodate the needs to autistic people.  

If you haven't yet completed the anonymous socialising survey and would like to, you can get to it by clicking here for a couple more weeks.  A new infographic will be produced showing the final results and an update will be sent when the new survey is ready to access.