Hello, this is Anna Kennedy and we're at All Things Autism live at Women's Radio Station. My guests today are Dennis Riloho Howell and Anne Hickman. Before we go over to both my guests, we're going to be talking about blogging today and how to set up a blog and what the challenges are of setting up a blog. Before I do that, I just want to tell you a little bit about what I've been doing. Last week was so busy, I went to Hull and I went to see a charity called Aim Higher. What a journey I had on the train. The train broke down, I got there late but they were waiting for me and they were just great. What they shared with me was that they set up their charity three years ago because they were really struggling to find a support group that would help them. We were chatting and we chatted about lots of different topics and then they shared with me that they still are told things like, your child has eye contact. He cannot be autistic. Your child is too articulate. He cannot be autistic. This adult isn't autistic. I've seen Rain Man and you wouldn't believe that came from a head of social services. I just like was in shock horror and then this person can drive, they are not autistic and I thought, wow, I hurt one other one. This person can boil a bag of rice in a microwave. They cannot be autistic and I just thought where do they get these comments from? So I just wanted to share that with you and we were laughing but it's not really funny if you get my meaning. So that was Aim Higher. They're a fantastic charity made up of parents and professionals and they've got lots of activities. So if you live in the whole area, please check them out. So welcome Dennis and welcome Anne. Thank you for having us here. And thank you for coming to Covent Garden. This is my regular haunt. So Dennis, tell me a little bit about your background if you don't mind. Yeah. So I'm the founder of a mental health blog called PsychRage. A lot of people get it wrong. Usually they say PsychRage, but for the record PsychRage. I've been running it since 2014 and I do speak on a number of events about blogging, basically the psychology of blogging. So I came here to share about tips and advices if you're interested on how to run your own blog or autism blog. I thank you for that. And I understand you've got 70,000 views on PsychRage and you were highly commended in the UK blog awards two years in a row, which was 2017 and 2018. So congratulations on that. Thank you. I owe that to my loyal readers. It sounds a bit impressive. I'm 70,000, but it took me four years and 14 years of blogging experience to reach that stage. So Anne. So tell me a little bit about your background if you don't mind. So I started blogging in 2015. So it's been going on, what's that, three and a half years? Mm hmm. And before that I was in marketing and PR. I did marketing PR for various charities and associations, then had my children, did some teaching about marketing and PR and then ended up just one day going crumbs. I really want to tell somebody about something and started a blog. And that was it. The blog has obviously grown, which is wonderful. It's in the top two percent of parenting blogs in the UK. Wow, well, thank you. And has been nominated for a BAPS award from 2017. So it's it's obviously grown and that's lovely. But really, it's all about sharing our stories and experience and helping others who have kids with autism or are autistic themselves. So tell me a little bit about if you don't mind your children. You have three children, I believe. That's right. So I have two boys and a girl. I have Anthony, who is 10. David, who is eight and Jane, who is five. Both my eldest, my boys are both on the autistic spectrum. And my other source has ADHD. And we're. So not boring in your house, then? No, yes, they definitely do. You've got three kids, three different pickups for schools. Yes, it's a busy life. OK, I'll be interested to know about diagnosis because obviously I did a survey a few years ago, but it's cropping up again. Parents writing to me. One in Slough was saying 22 months, she's been waiting for a diagnosis. Another lady, six years, another lady, seven years, an adult, 20 years. So how long did you wait? I was very fortunate, actually. Both my boys were diagnosed before they were four years old, which is, according to what I've read in the paper, is actually quite amazing. OK, they, the eldest took a long time for his ADHD to be diagnosed because he was effectively masking his symptoms because he already had one. So you've got three children, two on the spectrum. And what about education to get an EHCP? You know, that wonderful document. Oh, the wonderful document that we've all had to do or have transferred. Yes. So they both started school with statements, or which used to be the old EHCPs, or my middle one actually started had one of the first EHCPs that was done in the borough. So they both started school with those, which was really fortunate for them because it meant their support was there when they started school. However, as things have gone on, it's, you know, their needs have changed and updating it isn't always as easy as it should be. No. OK, so, Dennis, we're here to talk about blogging. So what is a blog? So for a listener that's never heard of the word blog, what is a blog? How would you describe it? A lot of people confuse blog with a regular website, but how I would differentiate the two is that a blog is actually dynamic. OK. Whereas your regular website is just a static platform. OK. Allow me to give an example just to illustrate that. Basically, let's say you look at a website of Apple. OK. All throughout, let's say, for the past 10 decades, it will be the same platform. You're going to see products of Apple. OK. Whereas if you go to a blog, it gets regularly updated. So that's that's the thing about what that's the thing about blog. It gets regularly updated. And I would say that it's also democratic because a lot of people who run blogs are actually it's not your usual people who've got a bigger platform. It's just happens gradually that they gain an audience. They gain a reader. OK. So when you put your first post up on a blog, how is that for you? Were you like looking, thinking, oh, I wonder if people are going to like it. So are you worried about it? I started blogging 20 or four. I started as a it started as a personal blog because I'm quite opinionated. I hold a number of opinions, some of which are unpopular. OK, politics, religion and all that. So basically, it was just a platform for me to share to express my thoughts. I was not really interested whether I would have an audience or not. OK, so it's just a way of you to vent. Yeah, exactly. Because basically, when I was growing up, I was an introvert. I don't really express myself efficiently with, you know, interacting regular interaction with people. I'm better off expressing myself in writing. Yeah. Growing up, there was no Internet. So I was just keeping a journal. OK. And so when there was already Internet, I was I was I found a sense of fulfillment around exciting. Wow. I found a platform now that I can express myself. Yeah. So it's not it's not really about whether I have an audience or not. And then and then after that, I after I was after three years, I started running a travel blog because when I was in my 20s, yeah, I love going to places on my own. I was a backpacker, so I go to different countries. So you got that out of your system. Yeah, I'm 37 now. So. OK, basically, when I when I was running a travel blog, I was just giving tips like to the places I've been. All right. And soon I moved into the UK. So I started a mental health blog because my background is in psychology. So I tried to meld those two interests, blogging and mental health. OK, thank you. So and your blog is called Rainbows Are Too Beautiful. I love that. And why is it called Rainbows Are Too Beautiful? And why did you start it? Oh, come switch way to go around. I say, why did I start it? So I started it because I had an inset day with my middle son, David, and I took him to a playground and playgrounds can be a bit challenging sometimes with my son. He doesn't understand sharing at that time. He was still pre verbal and he was at the playground and another little girl came up to him and somehow they managed to play together. OK. And I just stood there for the first time in my life going, I am not required in this interaction. What a bizarre feeling. Isn't it amazing? Yeah. I have to tell someone. And I literally went home and googled write a blog. I picked up the first blogging package I found and I wrote my first blog that was about him playing with the child for the first time. So how easy was that to set up? Because you say you got your first blog package. So people are thinking, oh, no, that's not difficult. I literally googled write a blog. OK. And I would say I was I think I had to use my Google login or something, an email address, literally an email address like you would for signing up for Facebook or Twitter or anything. And I like I said, I sort of had a bad ground in marketing and PR. So it wasn't too difficult for me to sort of go, oh, this is a template. I just need to fill in. Here's where you type it to do all the HTML for you. And then there's a big button in the right that said publish. Yeah. And I read my first post and publish it and went, that was great. So how did you feel when you posted it? Were you like watching to see who would read it? I was like, is this of interest to anyone? Yeah, I didn't know. But the next day I thought, I'm going to do it again. And I did for the first couple of months. I wrote nearly every like Monday to Friday. I wrote a post like nearly every day. That's come down a lot. Yeah, because obviously you've got to come up with new content all the time. But I found that there was just such a relief in being able to talk about it. You find using photographs helps the blog as well, because obviously somebody said something of it all just about writing or can you share a couple of photographs? Well, when I first did it, all it was was text. As Dennis said, it was about almost like a sort of diary, lots of people and particularly the other autism bloggers I know started up as a sort of diary to either keep track of what's going on in their lives or to share it with their friends and family. So I'd say I didn't have a photo on it probably for, I don't know, three or four months. But then when you start looking at other blogs and you say, oh, well, they've got nice photos on it. Now every poster is a photo. Thank you. So we're at women's radio station. We're live and we're in Covent Garden. And if you're interested in writing a blog, we are going to be sharing something on my charity website and on Psych Reg. So if you're interested, we'll put a few links on there. But if you'd like to talk to somebody, if your sons or daughters just been recently diagnosed, you can contact us at the charity website, which is www.annakennedyonline.com. You'd like to either speak to Dennis or you'd like to speak to Anne. You can contact us through the charity website and we'll pass your messages on to both of them. So we're at women's radio station and we're talking on all things autism. If you want to check out the women's radio station website, it's www.womensradiostation.com and thank you. Welcome to Women's Radio Station, the voice of women worldwide. 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Hi, I'm Zina Miskoni, head of business development at Women's Radio Station. Radio advertising is the most cost effective way of reaching a huge audience globally. Moreover, our sponsorship and advertising packages can be tailored to your needs, whether it be a product or brand service you're looking to promote. If you are interested in sponsoring or advertising, please contact me on 07 956 371483, or alternatively ZM at womensradiostation.com. Hello, this is Anna Kennedy, and we're at All Things Autism Women's Radio Station live at Covent Garden. And my guests today are Dennis Ruhloho Howell, and we're also at Anne Hickman. Before I go over to them to talk about blogging, I just want to give you a little bit of update of where I went last week. I'm here there and everywhere. I actually went to Colchester and I went to Hull. So I talked about Hull earlier. So talk to you a little bit about Colchester. And I'm so proud to say that I'm now patron of Autism Anglia. And I visited them in Colchester. What a great group of people, really passionate, really driven, really want to make a difference. And they're going to be moving officers soon. So I don't envy them with all the packing and moving to a new premises. But we're going to be doing something on autism and homelessness. We're going to be doing a project together. And what we are noticed that it's a lack of appropriate housing for autistic individuals. And the major focus for us is the clarity that we need to what, you know, what do autistic adults need to do if they're homeless? Where do they go? So this is something that we've been working on with a gentleman in Cornwall. I'm pleased to say he's not on the streets anymore. He went to see a property last week and he's very excited about it. And we're keeping our fingers crossed that we're just trying to sort out his benefits. Autism Anglia received calls from people in extreme distress. We were talking about this quite upsetting, really, with deteriorating mental health, suicide and self-harm and some driven to suicide, which they spoke to me about one particular case of a young man that actually did commit suicide, which was really, really sad. Increasing issues for school leavers and in particular men in their mid 20s. So all something that it's just like, it's just too upsetting to even talk about. And so, yeah, so just keep checking out on the charity website on Autism Anglia and on Anna Kennedy online, you'll see the project. Sorry, the process that we're going through to try and raise further awareness about autism and homelessness. So we're talking about blogging today. So, Dennis, can you give us some tips and advice? So we talked a little bit about it, but can you just give a little bit more? Somebody's thinking, right, I want to write a blog. I want to write something about autism or whatever it is that they want to write about. Before, before giving out some tips, I just want to explain to you what blogging is. You have to, because blogging encompasses three, let's say three domains. It could be your traditional blogging, like textual blogging. The one where you read articles. That's what we call textual blogging. And then there's also micro blogging, where you have regular contents through social media, like through Twitter or Instagram or Facebook. That could be classified as micro blogging. And there's also video blogging or blogging. Now, if you want to run a micro blog, a textual blog, I'm sorry, a textual blog, obviously you have to choose a good domain name. That's your .com, .org, or .net, like in the case of Anne. She's got a lovely domain name. Rainbows are too beautiful. So do you have to buy that? Yeah, you have to buy that, but you could also have free ones. Whether you choose it through WordPress or Blogger, there are free options. But if you want to take blogging seriously, I would recommend that you buy your own domain. If you want to buy that name, how much would it cost you? Roughly. Roughly. It could be from five grid to . . . Oh, so it's not a lot then? Yeah, it's not a lot. But what would cost you a lot is hosting, especially if you're already gaining traffic. Obviously, you have to upgrade your hosting service and that costs a lot of money. So that's my number one take. Choose your own domain. Hopefully, by that time, you already have an idea of the contents that you would put on your blog. So obviously, we're talking about autism blog. So obviously, it should be all about autism. And then choose a good hosting provider. I'm not going to recommend any hosting provider. It's up to you to test them. But basically, what I would say is that be sure it's reliable, because you don't want to frustrate your readers that when they visit your website, it's down or it's slow. So it's good if you have a good hosting provider. And second, design. Because ultimately, blogging is a visual medium. So you have to have a good design. And also, another thing is about the content. If you're just blogging about autism, obviously, it's an area that you're passionate about. So you could just talk about autism all the time. The thing about blogging is that you have to be consistent about it. If you think you're just going to go into blog for like every six months or every year, you might as well blog. You have to choose a different medium because the key to blogging is consistency. I was just going to say, how often would you update your blog? Would you recommend? In my case, because I'm a professional blogger, I earn from blogging. I updated like seven times a day. I have seven different articles. Seven times a day? That's a lot more than me. But when I was starting in 2004, I just updated every month. When I was doing my travel blog, it's every week. But obviously, it's a different thing for me because it's my bread and butter. So I have to blog a lot. And do you enjoy it? Yeah, I do enjoy it. Also, some of my content is sponsored content. So yeah, I have to update it. But I'd also like to thank you for sharing charity stuff. Yeah, my pleasure. That's great because obviously, we're a charity and every penny counts on us. And I don't have PR. I do everything myself. People think I'm mad because they'll say, oh, who does all your social media? If I do it all myself, and I think it has to come from me because I'm passionate about what I do and I want to control what I'm saying. So over to you. So rainbows are so beautiful. You still haven't told me why you've chosen this title. So this might sound a bit strange to you, but when we were younger, when my son, my eldest son was younger, he used to cry every time it rained and was sunny. And it took us a while to sort of get him and give him the communication tools he needed in order to be able to express to us what was going on. So initially, we thought it was maybe the sun was too bright, a sort of sensory issue, or maybe the rain in his face was causing him to discomfort, which actually it did. But that wasn't the unique thing. He said, no, I just can't. I just can't look at the rainbows. And I was like, OK, and about it was about two years later that I managed to get him to understand when I was saying to him, why can't you look at the rainbows? And he told me that they were too beautiful to look at. So that heads the title. Exactly. And so it sort of describes the way that he sees the world differently. He experiences his senses come differently to everything. He can actually now look at rainbows. You'll be glad to know, but still thinks they're absolutely gorgeous. And he will use the phrase sometimes, like he said, someone's singing is too beautiful as well. But yeah, that's where the name came from. I actually came up with that name quite quickly because it seemed to very easily encompass what I wanted to talk about, which is what you were saying, Dennis. I wanted to talk about the children, how they were growing and how the autism affected their lives and the lives of the family and how we experienced them positively as much as much as we could. What sort of things back do you get from parents and how often do you blog? So initially, as I mentioned, when I started off, I blogged like Monday to Friday. The blogs were much shorter than I tend to do longer pieces now. So I blog once or twice a week. OK, so and you find time as and when you can. Exactly. Yeah, on the spectrum. Quite often, I will make time because there's something I passionately want to write about. Other times I feel less motivated to write. So there can be some things in my life that are taking a lot of emotional time up that I feel I can't write about for some reason or another. And then it's a bit harder for me to put the effort in to come up with a post speak. What would you like to do? What would you like to share with people? OK, so would you say that blogging for you is slightly therapeutic? Oh, definitely. Yeah, I would say. Yeah, definitely. It's definitely a way of sharing my experiences. And it's the feedback that I get from the people who read it as well. People who say, thank you for writing that. I thought I was the only one who felt that way. I never thought, oh, thank you very much. It's so great to hear that you've managed to make this work. I could try that with my child or from autistic adults who say, oh, I was like that when I was a child. It's nice to see someone supporting their child or the difficulties that maybe they had. And honestly, it's the one comment that you get that hits your heart that makes it all worthwhile. Yeah, I always think if somebody, if it's just one person that gets something out of what you've written or what you've spoken about, or if I'm in a conference in one person, it's worth doing. Well, I once wrote a response to a journalist who had said something in a newspaper about an autistic child. I said, I totally disagreed with them. And they actually responded to me, said, I never thought of looking at that way. And they completely changed their mind about stuff. And that was, oh, yeah. Goal took. Done. Yeah, I just want to touch on that. You mentioned about the therapeutic value of blogging, because I actually did a research on expressive writing for my master's degree. Basically, in common parlance, when you say expressive writing, you find psychological benefits from writing. And the idea of expressive writing goes back to the 1980s. Obviously, way back then, people keep a journal. But right now, I would say that print is dead. And a lot of us who enjoy expressing ourselves through writing, we do it through blogging. So yeah, I agree with what she said. Thank you. One thing, Anne, I found that I've spoken to a few parents, if you like, or even adults who are autistic, who write blogs. But then they get attacked from sharing their opinions. And I find that quite sad. Oh, yeah, this is quite sad. And it's not actually that uncommon. I guess it's autism broad spectrum, a wide range of views held by people in the autistic community and the parents of autistic children. And there can be conflict in what people think should and shouldn't be done, should and shouldn't be said. The challenge, of course, is that blogging is a personal viewpoint. And it can be really sad when these people feel that their views effectively either hurt other people or nobody goes out to blogging, I think, to deliberately upset anyone else. They are all there just sharing their stories. And yeah, I think it can be quite upsetting when you find that through no fault of their own, someone somewhere has got upset, and then they feel the need they've had to pull their blog down, which could actually have been supporting other people. That's right. So if you're interested in looking at Anne's blog, it's called Rainbows Are Too Beautiful. And it's quite easily easy to find. If you type that in, that's the only one that comes up. And then if you're interested in looking at Dennis's blog, which is called Psych Reg, is that quite easy to find? I'm sure it is. Yeah, or just Google my name. So again, if you want to contact the charity website, you want to ask questions, it's www.annakennedyonline.com. So if you have questions for either of my guests or guests in the past, we will pass them along. So again, just to remind you www.annakennedyonline.com. Thank you again. 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Hi, I'm Zeena Miskoni, Head of Business Development at Women's Radio Station. Radio advertising is the most cost-effective way of reaching a huge audience globally. Moreover, our sponsorship and advertising packages can be tailored to your needs, whether it be a product or brand service you're looking to promote. If you are interested in sponsoring or advertising, please contact me on 07 956 371 483 or alternatively zm at womensradiostation.org. Hello, this is Anna Kennedy and we're talking all things autism. We're at Women's Radio Station live in Covent Garden. So before I go over to my guests, we're going to be talking about blogging again. I'd just like to share with you that I went to visit Watford FC sensory room and it's really fantastic. So if you're a supporter of Watford Football Club and you would like to use the sensory room, you can basically contact them as a gentleman called David Messenger and you can also see the virtual reality sensory room tour. So it's David Messenger at Watford FC dot com. I'll just repeat that again. So it's Dave dot messenger spells M E double S E N G E R at Watford FC dot com. We're actually going to be doing some activities with them. So if you keep checking out the charity website, you can check out what we're going to be doing. A feedback that I was reading about a fan said it's hard to explain how emotional it is to feeling like a normal family for a few hours not having to do a risk assessment minute by minute. What you've created is a safe place for our children to be involved in their community. So that's feedback from a family and that's wonderful. And what Watford are saying it's a calm comfortable space for children on the autumn spectrum to watch Premier League football. Tickets will be available for all matches in the 2019 and 2020 season. Starting in sorry, sorry, starting in August not October. Fans are interested in trying to meet the room or see the room please contact it. So it's fantastic resource there. And there's many, many football clubs now that have a sensory room. I believe the first one was in Sunderland, which I sent a letter to back just to say, look, there's a lot of families out there that want to support their team and they want to take the kids along and experience it just like everybody else. That's brilliant. Okay, so Dennis, have you ever been attacked for writing a piece on your blog? Yeah, like what I've told you, I started as a personal blogger, but it's just some all about my opinion. So expectedly, I would get a lot of people. So would you say that you would feed back to them? Or would you ignore their comments? Because some people say ignore what they say, especially like trolls on social media, because that's what they want you to do. But I would use the word being more receptive and open minded, especially now that I'm managing a mental health blog. But before when I was running a travel blog, and I was running a personal blog, I was more of defensive. But right now, I try to keep an element of balance with my blogging. So usually, I'm not going to say something nice, I just ignore the comments at all, especially on social media. The mute button is very helpful. Okay, so any more tips that you have for families that might like to set up a blog? If you want to set up a blog, just be consistent on whether you would like to blog every day or weekly. And also keep in mind that it's a visual platform. So don't try to make your blog do tech space. So try to intersperse it with images. And also try to do a bit of research about SEO. Because of course, So what does SEO mean? Search engine optimization. Basically, you want your blog to appear on search engine. And in quotation marks, there's a science behind it. So it's not just accidental that your blog appears on search engine. Do a bit of research about that. So what's the advantage then? The advantage of that is that it helps your traffic. Of course, you don't want to run a blog, which is nobody reads. If you're just keeping a blog as a means of like we were talking about using it as a force for therapy for yourself, if you just want to run your blog for yourself, then that's fine. But if you're if you're reason for running a blog is you want to share information, or if you want to use it as a job, then obviously you would benefit from a good SEO. Okay, so how many words would you recommend? So if you write, so if I want to write a blog now, how many words would you say would you recommend to me would be the limit? There's a there's a there's a number of opinions whether you should go for long articles like 1000 to 2000. But personally, for me, I want to have my articles as snappy as possible, because right now, people have short span attention. I was just going to say it's instant gratification, isn't it? That you see a lot of people just want to read it quick. Got it. Thank you. Yeah. So I want my blog that works for me, because I just want my blog to be snappy, direct to the point. And I want my blog to read like you would be talking to your people. I don't want jargon. So I know even if you're blogging about this, and there's certain jargon involved, like EHPC, some people may not be aware of that. Okay, but I rather have it like any anyone could read it. And so that's my approach to black. And I just ask you about copyright as well. Do you have anybody that lifts up what you've written and then shares it as their own? Yeah, good thing you mentioned about copyright, because I've been guilty of copyright infringement in the past, because it's very tempting just to copy and paste and just change it a bit. And also about using images. But I suppose you could copy and paste a piece and then say this was taken from whoever it was. So that would obviously if you were doing like an essay at school. Yeah. Yeah, they would appreciate that. But I've learned now, I would say I've matured as a blogger now. I take integrity into my blogging, that I want it to be like my own contents. Or if I'm soliciting gospels, that I want it to be copyright free. And also with images, that could also be quite tricky as well, because a lot of people just use images without permission. I would say just use stock photos. There's so many of them that speak survey, there's back sales, they're everywhere. Okay, and I totally agree with Dennis. So most of my posts around about 500 words, if that long. They all have an image on them. And some tips for that is, Dennis said Pixabay, but I tend to go out and I do mass picture taking with the kids. So we'll go to the park and I'll take 200 photos of them in the park. But that could be, I could get 50 blog posts out of those. It's like a bank of four. Like a bank, yeah. Create a big bank and chunks and that makes it easy. And you can just go between them. So that's quite helpful if you're looking for those kind of things. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about content for your blog, if you don't mind. Yes, certainly. So coming up with content, obviously, there's, it seems like there's really only so much you can talk about. And I can talk about how my kids got their diagnosis. Actually, that happened before I started blogging. So that would have to be a sort of historical post. Along with the day to day things, there's other things that you can look at. So I do sort of post that like how to post. So how do I cope with cutting my kids hair? How do we get them in the bath? How do we go to the park without having a meltdown? How do we arrange for a holiday with a family that's full of autism? Could you do holidays? We do, actually. We found that breaking the school routine is worse when they actually have nothing to do at home. Having another routine and having a task to do is actually better for them. So it's actually better for us to go away on holiday and do something than it is to stay at home. Did you go at the same place or how does it work? Sometimes we do. Our eldest really likes going to the same place over and over again. But most of the time, it's just a case of keeping things relatively simple while we're away. We always go self-catering so we can draw the food. We always go somewhere we can park if we're driving so we don't have a troll upstairs or something. So there are sort of criteria we look for, but we don't always go to the same place. What about, have you been abroad, obviously? Yeah, we came back from Spain recently. Wow. So how was that? It was great. We actually went to watch the Formula One with my, because he's a Formula One avid supporter. Oh, we've got an ambassador, Matty Street, who's mad about that sort of thing. And he's got his own business called Team Karting. Oh, right. Well, my son does karting. Oh, well, there you go. Check him out. Yes, I will do. So we actually find that it can be easier to go away. So there's all these things that can create your content for you. So before you got to Spain, can I just ask? You went which airport was it and how did you find it? Oh, we went Gatwick. Oh, okay. And we had the... Lanyards? Lanyards. Yeah, with the sunflowers on. With the sunflowers on. Okay. And we kept them in our bag for when we came back. Because when we came back, we also got to go through the easier way on the way back. You got the sensory room. We didn't go to the sensory room. We time out. We try and time so that we're not in the airport for too long. What was quite good is we came back. So we flew in and out of Barcelona. And Barcelona actually has an outdoor space in its airport. Oh, does it? Yeah, amazing. Yeah, so if you ever go to Barcelona, head for the downstairs Starbucks. And actually, it's an outside area, which is quite good. But again, it just space for the kids that was there. Gatwick's been great with supporting adults and children with autism. And Heathrow now just got a sensory room, which I'm going to go and see. We went to go through the barriers. And one of our tickets didn't operate. So my husband had to go and get a ticket reissued. And at that point, my middle son, he can't cope with the family being separated. He basically started going into a meltdown. And someone came up to us with the lanyards. They spotted us from the other side. So yes, absolutely. Yeah, autism support Crawley, who I'm patron of, Maria Cook. She's had quite, you know, she's been working with them with reference to the sensory room and, you know, working alongside. So I've been working with Heathrow Airport. So we're doing what we can to try and make a difference. So it's just. Well, so that's the kind of thing that would help me create content for Boggill. And as you say, as you mentioned, a charity. I also I support other charities. So Me Too and Co, which is a local charity based in Richmond, the Makaton charity. Both of those do things on a regular basis. Makaton charity do a sign of the week every week. I quite often figure out what I'm going to write about that week based on what the sign of the week was. Okay. So what's the sign of the week? This week, socks and so on, thinking I might do something about getting like helping your child get dressed or something like that. Okay. So it's a way of generating ideas to come up with content. So Autumn Anglia, who I'm now patron from, they're having a silly soccer. Oh, well, there you go. And that's for Autism Awareness Week, which is coming up very soon. Very soon, yeah. Will you be writing about Autism Awareness Week? Yes. What I'll usually do for Autism Awareness Week is pick my favorite autism aware posts from the last year and make a week's worth of posts that I share for that usually. So again, if people are interested in looking at your blog, where can they look? They can look at www.rainbowsr2beautiful.com. That's rainbowsr2beautiful with two O's, like two beautiful. Oh, lovely. And how about you, Janice? Where can they find you again? Yeah, so it's psychreg, www.psychreg.org. Okay. And have you got a topic of the week? The International Day of Happiness is coming. So there's a new article about that tomorrow. Oh, I love things. Anything to do with happy, laughing, kind, I'm up for that. So again, if you want to write to us or you want to write an article, please send it to www.annakennedyonline.com. You want to contact the office. It's 01895-540-187. I'm on social media at Anna Kennedy One on Twitter at Anna Kennedy OBE on Instagram. Welcome to Women's Radio Station, the voice of women worldwide. I'm Sarah Louise Ryan, and welcome to Love Lessons Live on Women's Radio Station. Hello, and welcome to Future Classic Women Awards with me, Stephanie Pasalante on Women's Radio Station. Hello, and welcome to Julie Mae is Listening. Hello, this is Anna Kennedy at Women's Radio Station, live voice of women worldwide, talking about all things autism. Women, the possibilities are endless. That's what makes us different. I'm Saskia at Sable Forex, and we specialize in saving individuals and companies money on their international money transfers or foreign exchange. So when money's crossing currencies, whether it's euros to yen or rounds to pounds, that's where we can add value. So for all your foreign exchange needs, I'm Saskia at Sable. You can contact me on saskia.johnston at sableinternational.com, or my number is 0207 759 7541. Hi, I'm Sue Openshaw, owner of Femme de Ciel, the luxury ski chalet in Samoix in the Grand Massif, France. 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Hi, I'm Zina Miskoni, Head of Business Development at Women's Radio Station. Radio advertising is the most cost-effective way of reaching a huge audience globally. Moreover, our sponsorship and advertising packages can be tailored to your needs, whether it be a product or brand service you're looking to promote. If you are interested in sponsoring or advertising, please contact me on 07 956 371 483 or alternatively ZM at womensradiostation.com. Hello, this is Anna Kennedy and we're talking all things autism and we're at Women's Radio Station live. We're in the last quarter of our section of our programme already. We feel like we've been talking, we could do more. So what I'm going to tell you about now is I went to see a lovely lady who runs something called the Black Canvas Art Club and she was talking to me about how she wanted to set up art classes for children, autistic children and autistic adults. So she's going to be doing a pilot where it's going to be six classes per term. So you can go along with either, if your child's able to stay on their own, that's fine. Or if you wanted a carer to go along. So if you're interested, just check out Black Canvas Art Club and it's six classes per term and it's £15 per class per pupil and carer and the weekly adult classes and Saturday classes for children. So check them out. So it's blank canvas art club at gmail.com or they're on Facebook and just type in blank canvas art club. So we're coming up to autism awareness week and month and we're very, very busy in the charity. And what we're going to be doing is we're going to be doing our autism expo, which is coming up very soon. So we're going to be having clinics there where people can get free legal advice. They can get OT advice, which is occupational therapy. They can get behavior management advice or they can just talk to people who are like-minded and you just want to sit down and share information or you just want to have a chat or you just want to have five minutes to yourself. We've got top speakers there all day. It's only £10 for the whole day. And then we have a room where if you want to take your child in there, we might want to do a bit of colouring in. Whatever it is that you want to do, just to relax. Please come along. Brunel University, fantastic venue. It's just such a lovely area. And if you want to experience the autism reality experience, you want to see what it's like to have a sensory overload. That's three minutes going through it. I found it a little bit overwhelming that when I went through it and you have to fill out a form before you go in there to, you know, if you might have epilepsy or if you've got any medical issues, but this will be our third year and they have now got an extra bus. So they've got four buses that are going across the country and apparently they're taking it to Cork too. So that's going to be coming up for them. We've also got some of our performers which we're so excited about that are going to be singing and dancing in the Apple Store in Covent Garden. So that's going to be happening very soon and our performers are so excited and so am I because I'm going to be presenting them. So that's something else. So if you're interested, just check out the charity website. We've got autism dance day as well that's coming up. I'm in my seventh year of doing that. We got UNESCO patronage for doing it when we did it the first year. So it's just something fun. You want to might dance in the lounge. You want to might dance. We've had pictures where people have danced in their offices, in the warehouse, in the park, wherever it is. It's just a little bit of fun because sometimes autism can get a little bit too serious and sometimes you just need to have a little bit of fun with the kids or the adults or with your colleagues at work to raise awareness about autism. So Dennis, thank you for coming today and talking about blogging. So I've learned a little bit today. Is there anything else that you might like to share with us? Yeah, I've also liked to share to you about what I do aside from blogging. I also talk about different conferences. Okay, so is that across the country? I'm actually going to Malaysia, Philippines and Romania this year. Oh wow, is that to do with your blog? It's all about, I'll just talk about psychology of blogging. And mental health. And this summer I've been invited as one of the speakers at Mental Health Awards. So it's a specific niche. This is just a networking event for mental health bloggers. All right then. And where abouts is that? Where is that going to be? That's on the 27th of July. Okay, but where? In Portsmouth. Okay. And then every December, I also organize a mental health bloggers conference. Okay, and where will that be held? In Raynam, where I live. Oh, so you're an Essex boy? Yeah, I bet you could hear from my thick Essex accent. We've got charity champions in Essex. So that's Keith and Dawn, my very first charity champion couple. We've got Aston who's their son and he is on the radio there. He's a fantastic presenter and he's been doing it for quite some time now, Gateway Radio. So they're also organizing a charity football match, which we're all really excited about because we've got celebrity footballers. We've done this once before, which was two years ago and we've got lots of fun things that are happening on the day and again. The Autumn Reality Experience are coming to support us at the football match. So if you want to come along, all this information will be on our charity website. So Anne, you have got lots of strings to your bone. I was reading about it that apparently you're a contributor on the Huffington Post UK and The Mighty. You've provided posts for newspapers such as the Yorkshire Post. That's from my area of the woods, Middlesbrough, sort of in that sort of area and several online publications including Special Needs Jungle. That's a fantastic website. That is just one of our charity autism a hero award winners a couple of years ago. So tell me a little bit about that. Well, it's just really more of the same and just trying to create awareness and acceptance really of autism. So I do it obviously on my blog and then having written for quite a while every day or twice a week, I was either approached or offered some of the posts or offered to write new things. Yeah, a similar ilk and it just sort of spread from there. Yeah, so I've posted, I've done blog posts that have gone on Huffington Post and other places too which is great because it's just like, as you say, it's just another way of sending out the message. This is what our life is like. It's great for us. It can be challenging for us. But it just is. I know I always say take one day at a time. Some days good. Some days not so good. Not so good. Yeah, some days. Yes, some days really not so good. And some days are just, oh my goodness, I wish today could have been every day. Wasn't it amazing? So tell me what's your most favorite? Post. And what's been your more successful post? Okay, so I guess, well, there's probably my most successful post is in it. It sort of got picked up quite quickly and got a lot of reaction was one about how my son using an iPad wasn't me being a bad mother. Yeah. An alternative to parenting. Yeah. And it was all about how there was a recent report at the time about the amount of screen time that children were getting. And it was actually, my son hugely benefits from his screen time. It provides him with sensory input and provides him with the ability to cut out the extended environment. He learns via it. And if he's spending several hours a day on his iPad, that is not a bad thing in our family. But I think it was probably pretty successful because it resonated with so many other parents. And we can't be there 24 seven, like we are human. Yeah, we're trying to keep jobs. We're a wife. You know, we're a mother. We're like trying to do everything else that everybody else really added challenges that we have, the systems that we've got to navigate, filling out those dreadful forms. The ones that bring you to tears. Yeah, you've got to have a degree and how to fill them out. Well, absolutely. We can't do everything all the time. But I think even in some cases, if I was given the choice of what do I want my son to be doing now? Actually, he could do with half an hour on his iPad. He could use that to chair. And that sort of, I think it resonates with so many people that it just got quite a good feedback. When the internet's down. Yeah. Oh, it's not good. No, it's definitely not good. We have a lot of apps. When we were talking about traveling earlier, one of the things that we've practiced with our son is having his iPad without it being connected to the internet. So he can so he understands. There's a lot of, he's got a lot of apps that operate without needing to be to connect to the internet. So he can still do things. Yeah, I give my son my phone because he gets the iPad because he obviously he's got minimal verbal skills. He'll just push it in my hands. He'll say, come on. That's his way of saying it. My middle one, the most common thing he probably says is plug. He wants me to plug the iPad back in because it's run out of battery. But that's been more successful. So what's been your most favorite? It was probably the one where it's called my joy of his acceptance. It was shortly after my son had been diagnosed with ADHD and after much consideration and thinking about what are we going to do? We decided that medication would be a good thing for him to try. It came to the day of him trying it out. He was going to have it first thing in the morning. And he sat on the stairs. He said to me, is the pills I'm going to take, is it going to change my brain? And I said to him, no, no, no. It should just help you focus a bit more. And he went, because if it's going to change my brain, I don't want that to happen. I want the brain I've got. And this was, believe it or not, not that long after one of my other popular posts, which was where we decided it was time to tell him that he was autistic because he was Saturday's homework, crying, and he said, my brain doesn't work properly. Please kill me. And you can just imagine my face, like holding back the tears. I know. You've got to hold it together. And the thing is, when our kids, they know when we're not feeling good. Oh, yes. Because like my youngest son, Angelo, he'll just throw up my face. And I know I've got a headache. They're so in my middle one. He's pre-verbal. He's so intuitive sometimes. It's amazing. But I think the fact that he'd not only come to terms with the fact that he was autistic, but then chose for that to be the way he wanted to continue to be. That was probably why that was one of my favourite posts. We're winding down now. So I just wanted to ask very briefly because I ask people, what do they do to relax? What do you do to relax, Anne? I dance music while I unload the dishwasher. Okay. And how about you, Dennis? What do you do to relax? I go sailing in Darsh. You go sailing? Oh, wow. It doesn't look bad. That's much more interesting. That's what I fit into my life. Dancing while I'm in the dishwasher. Oh, okay. Sailing? No, I can't swim. But I like the idea of it. So very quickly, what would be your most favourite post? My favourite post is mental health stories because although I don't have mental health experience, mental health stories create conversations. And I think that's what blogging is all about. It's all about creating conversations. I just want to say thank you to you both. So I'm hoping that we're going to have lots of blogs that you've motivated people to write blogs. And if you do, because of the programme, please message me on Anna Kennedy Online. So again, if you want to talk to people, you want to talk to Anne. If you want to talk to Dennis, you might want to ask a few more questions. Don't forget, it's www.AnnaKennedyOnline.com and I'll pass the messages on. And if you want to read the blogs, which Anne has written, again, what's the? www.RainbowsAreTooBeautiful.com will you find me on Twitter at RainbowsAreToo. Okay. And how about you, Dennis? Mine is sacrilege.org. I'm also on Twitter and Facebook. Okay. So Anne, you're easy to find. Yes. Okay. Again, thank you very much for listening to us at All Things Autism Women's Radio Station live at Coburn Garden. Bye bye now. Bye for now. Bye. Women's Radio Station is a fresh new broadcasting platform driven by love and passion. Connecting women around the world in a global network is all about diversity. From opinions, ethnicity, education, we aim to show the individuality of every woman everywhere, providing opportunities and a platform for your voice. Women, the possibilities are endless. That's what makes us different. Hi, I'm Liz Van Linden, the UK travel consultant for Hazelmere Travel. 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