Join Anna Kennedy as she celebrates exciting achievements including Women’s Radio Station winning its second Media Platform award and Anna Kennedy Online charity receiving the prestigious Jim Mansell Outstanding Contribution Award at the National Learning Disabilities and Autism Awards 2022. In this compelling episode, Anna interviews Pam Donnelly, founder of Avalon charity, who shares her deeply personal journey of discovering her daughter Ava’s autism diagnosis at age two when Ava began losing language skills and retreating into herself. Pam reveals the isolating reality of the diagnosis process and explains why she created Avalon charity after realizing that while she had secured all necessary support for her daughter, there was a critical gap in wellbeing support for parents themselves. The conversation tackles urgent issues including the dramatic increase in autism diagnosis wait times across the UK, with some areas seeing cases rise from just 20 in 2019 to over 700 by 2022, highlighting the overwhelming demand on NHS services and the difficult choices families face.