Scott Neilson and I would like to share that we will soon be publishing our booklet ‘Creating Safe Spaces for Autistic People’ to help services be truly more inclusive of our community members.
We are Autistic educators and have personal experience in guiding organisations with creating affirming groups and we also know the benefits of when we are able to come together with our community members. We know that in these safe spaces that we are able to thrive.
We wanted to create this booklet in order to outline some of the key principles, values and approaches that can cultivate a safe space for Autistic people and better ensure that your event or group is accessible.
This guide is both for identifying and non-identifying people to help support developing their group across a range of settings and activities such as lunch clubs, interest-based groups, community events, play groups, library activities and online gatherings. It is also relevant for schools, universities, healthcare services and therapists who are looking to make a safe space for Autistics.
Our booklet covers topics such developing your group vision, participant goals, supporting the diversity of participant needs and accessibility topics. We also outline how to acknowledge and support participant differences in communication, learning and sensory needs. Importantly we have included multiple sections on ensuring that you have the right staff to be guiding your participants.
With over 100 pages of ideas, we hope that each of you are able to take away meaningful ways forward so that Autistic participants are truly welcomed, validated and comfortable taking part.
We also have included insight and quotes from various educators, professionals and advocates.
We hope to be launching the publication of our booklet late February to March 2024.
Please also feel welcome to follow our social media to stay up-to-date on the release of additional projects and education events that we are hosting. We also welcome requests for organisation training based off of our booklet and additional education resources.
Thanks so much for sharing in on the excitement!
Last modified: 18 April 2024