Hello, this is Anna Kennedy, we’re talking All Things Autism and it’s another lovely sunny day today. Well yesterday evening I was at Pineapple Performing Arts celebrating 25 years with Maggie, the lovely Maggie. So Maggie is the Principal of Pineapple Performing Arts School and I met Maggie after I was introduced to her by Debbie Moore who is the founder of Pineapple Dance Studio and I was actually at the Woman of the Year award and she was sitting on the next table and I’d heard of her, you know, I knew she was the first woman to get her company into the FTSE 100 so I just approached her because now I’ve learnt throughout the years if you don’t ask, you don’t get, or she can say no.

So I approached her, I said I had a couple of ideas about doing a dance DVD for Children Who Are Autistic about doing a possible show so she said I’ve got the perfect person to introduce you to and that was Maggie and that was 14 years ago. So I went along to see one of Maggie’s shows at the Mermaid Theatre and basically she has Sunday classes all through the day at Pineapple Dance Studios where she’s got Children as Young as 3 and right up to adulthood. So the power of dance, performing arts, drama, it just can be so life changing, you know, it increases your confidence, there’s just so much, I just love that world.

So anyway, I said I had an idea because of my anti-bullying campaign and because of a lot of children and adults that were turning to the performing arts because of being bullied and teaching them how to play the guitar or on their piano or writing poetry or whatever it may be and I wanted to do a show purely of autistic talent so whether they were children, whether they were adults. So I said this theatre would be perfect because of the layout, because of the space. So she said come on then let’s do it.

So I said come on and I always remember us in 2011 and I started putting out feelers like who would be interested in performing on the stage and we were just inundated with amazing talent. So in 2012, May 2012 I always remember, we chose 20 performers and since then we’ve been doing it every year. So now we have performers, as you know, as I’ve spoken before, that they come from all over the world to come and perform and Alistra and I have just chosen our final performers and yeah, we’re so excited that’s going to be happening in October.

It’s a shame we can’t choose everyone, it’s harder every year, we narrowed it down to 30 and then we had to narrow it down to 20. So what happened is with our collaboration with Pineapple Women Arts, Maggie said that I couldn’t have scholarships. So every year we’ve chosen one or two people to go to Pineapple Dance Studios where they can do drama, singing and dancing and we’ve had about 10 students so far.

So yesterday they were celebrating 25 years and five of our performers actually performed a number on stage and they got a stand innovation, they sang This Is Me. I was just so proud of them because I know the journey that they’ve been on and you can just see how much their confidence has increased on stage, how much they’re enjoying what they’re doing. Like for example Charlotte, one of the performers didn’t speak till she was about seven years old.

She’s got a wonderful voice, you’ve got Macaulay again being bullied at school and now he’s at performing arts school as well as going to Pineapple on a Sunday. We’ve got Callum who was an orphan and his mum basically adopted him and he now had a street dance and he’s part of a street dance group which I’ve spoken to you about before called Atypical with Attitude and they’ve danced across the world and yeah Dylan’s another young man I was chatting to him yesterday and he’s talked to me about how he’s moved into his own place trying to get himself a job so how they’ve progressed it’s just amazing and Maggie is definitely an inclusive school you know she you don’t have to be talented to join Pineapple Performing Arts it’s about having fun, it’s about dancing, it’s about doing something that you love and what I did was I did a speech as well and then I just said about the open door policy of Pineapple Performing Arts means that sometimes in a single group you have truly gifted dancers working and training alongside those who might struggle. Part of the code of pineapple is that we help each other which has led to those who have mastered a move to reach out and help those who are struggling.

It’s a beautiful thing to see and it’s led to some truly extraordinary performances better still it’s led to friendships that have lasted far beyond the school and that’s what I love about Autumn’s Got Talent as well is the friendships that are created. I just want to give a shout out as well to Olivia Slatter, it’s somebody I’ve been supporting and she put her forward for the Princess Diana Award and she’s got it so that was on line and so it’s the Princess Diana Award on a roll. 200 people across the world were basically given this position and given this award if you like or accolade and I’m so pleased that Olivia was one of them so I nominated I think about three or four people in the past and about three people have got it and yeah I’m just gonna keep going if you don’t nominate you never know.

So my guest today is a talented lady so her name is Rebecca Doofus, I hope I’ve pronounced that correctly, she’s an experienced advisory teacher with a psychology degree and a master’s in autism and education. She has many years of experience working with students and educators in both mainstream and specialist education setting as well as within the local council and education services. Rebecca is the author of the autism identity and me workbook and guidebook and has been a speaker at conferences across the UK developing a range of parent programs and providing training and coaching for settings.

Rebecca is passionate about celebrating neurodiversity. Welcome Rebecca. Hello thank you for having me.

Oh thank you so much obviously you sent me a copy of your book and the workbook as well in the guidebook. So before we talk about autism, before we talk about teaching, let’s talk about you. Who is Rebecca? Where are you from Rebecca and what was it like for you growing up? So yes so my name is Rebecca Doofus and I’m from South London, kind of orders of Surrey.

Who I am so I’m a daughter, a wife, soon to be mother so I’m six weeks pregnant at the moment. So yeah life is about to change and yeah a sense of humor is very important to me so it’s kind of trying to find the laughs in life really. In terms of education for me it was pretty positive actually there was there were incidents of kind of you know friendship difficulties that you get especially going to an all-girls school for secondary.

Oh did you? I went to an all-girls school as well. It brings its own set of challenges pros and cons but with your what you’re talking about there with the Autism Got Talent event it reminded me of one of my other passions is is dancing. That’s something I’ve always done sort of for my child so I’m quite jealous of you in terms of being on Strictly Come Dancing.

Yeah so and then then there’s kind of I think going back to education. I love reading so that for myself as a child it was something I always had like a bedtime story and I’ve kind of carried that on in terms of having reading before bed is part of my kind of wind down routine and then apart from that it’s probably food. Food’s quite important to me.

Well anything really I’ve definitely got a sweet tooth so chocolate and ice cream and things like that but I am celiac as well so I can’t have gluten so that narrows down my choices slightly but sometimes that’s a good thing because it means I’ve got a smaller menu to choose from and I can be a bit indecisive. Yeah I was going to say out of interest because you’re having a baby and you’re a celiac. Do you have to take sort of extra vitamins? I’m just trying to think of.

I did yeah so with with the folic acid that you have to take at the beginning I had to take like super strength on so I think normally you take about five milligrams or something and I was on like 500 and it’s only because you’re if you are still I mean I’ve got completely gluten-free diet but there is obviously the chance that when you eat out that you might be contaminated by you know bits of flour from in the environment and stuff and so that can cause damage to your intestines and so you might not be fully absorbing all the vitamins and nutrients so it’s kind of a And what about you baby can you baby be tested for celiac while obviously it’s in the womb or do you have to wait till? No yeah I think I mean in the UK it tends to be that you wait until you have symptoms before you get tested but I know that I think places like Italy they have a standard kind of screening program for it but yeah in the UK it would be more if you you’re having sort of digestive problems because I didn’t actually discover that I was celiac until I was mid 20s but it is something that you can kind of be a carrier for and then it comes out at certain points if you have like a virus. That’s interesting yeah I was just wondering like how you know it didn’t affect you until you was 20 is there something that changes within the system or? I think they said to me it was I’d had like some kind of virus which had a bit of a stomach bug involved and they said things like that can kind of just sort of trigger it to trigger the onset because as a child I didn’t really have any symptoms and then more in my 20s that yeah I’ve noticed things more. Okay must be painful because I know I suffer from IBS and sometimes it can be quite debilitating but you’ve got to be careful of certain things sometimes that you eat or it can be stress related stress because I’m always worrying about stuff so and I find it difficult to switch off as well so that’s just who I am.

So yes so let’s let’s talk about what what are you doing today so obviously you’re going to be on maternity leave soon. You’re going to take the full year are you going to get back to working? Yeah yeah that’s the plan to take the full year so I’m actually this is my first week of maternity leave at the moment so yeah so it’s just trying to it’s a bit like what you’re saying about worrying about things is trying to find the balance between relaxing and recharging and actually getting loads of stuff done that maybe doesn’t necessarily need doing. So let’s talk about your current role then so at the moment so talk to me a little bit about how you got into teaching and why do you decided to write autism identity and me and also I want to ask you is when you were younger do you think you might have known people autistic but you didn’t know that they were at the time? Okay yeah so my background so I started off by doing a degree in psychology and then I was aiming to kind of carry on down that route maybe going to educational psychology and I got a job working as a learning support assistant in a school for autistic children and then I just loved that kind of role and the I think I found the young people I worked with you’ve got kind of if they if you managed to get that connection it was much more of a genuine connection yeah and so I thought that’s kind of what I liked that sort of regular contact with young people so I decided to do my teacher training PGC and then started working in mainstream for a while but missed obviously there was autistic children in my class but I missed being able to focus on those young people because of you know all the curriculum and the restraints you have as a class teacher so I then found this role I kind of wrote a list of what my ideal role would be and luckily managed to find it which was as an advisory teacher for autism so working for the local authority yeah that was South London yeah and going into schools to living training working with teachers and parents doing parent programs observations in class so that you could kind of where a teacher has to you know observe 30 children at once I was able to go in and just you watching that one child and maybe spot some subtle signs of maybe sensory seeking or you know things going on and then and that’s the role that I’m kind of still in today but it’s evolved quite a lot due to different funding cuts I’m just gonna say to you because I’ve spoken to quite a few where that particular position as in outreach has been cut because of funding and it’s just like that the people I’ve been speaking to are just distraught about it because they know how it’s going to leave a lot of the children and the skills that need that support so would you say it’s got considerably worse or it’s due to the cost of living and everything that’s going on with those yeah definitely I mean I know that schools are having to make savings in in whatever ways they can and somebody else you know not replacing staff and certain schools that might have that kind of preventative support because that’s a lot of what I do is trying to get the basics in place they maybe don’t have the funding for that anymore or it’s not top of the list of priorities so then it becomes more kind of firefighting when actually things it’s almost got too late to that just really frustrates me it’s like wait they wait until it’s crisis point yeah and it’s just like oh let’s throw some funding at them why didn’t you do it earlier would you say the distress of the family and the individual yeah exactly so so I’m quite lucky that we do have in the borough I work in that there is still kind of a role for me okay and and it’s a combination of so some schools now sort of will buy in support again it’s all different funding models but I think with the kind of conversations around the all-age autism strategy that helped with some like local authorities to kind of be putting autism a bit more at the forefront of their plans but hopefully I mean we always live in hopes there’s more funding coming but yeah never quite know but yeah so and I am with that role I’ve been able to speak at conferences and different things as you mentioned yeah but and then I found so some of the work in that role was around supporting young people to understand their autism diagnosis and I think I found that where sometimes like the school might be given training or the parents the young person isn’t always given any information about what autism actually means to them which is okay so I was doing some work in the local authority but was having people contacting me saying you know how like can you come and talk to my child specifically because I’m not really sure what to say myself as a parent or the school didn’t necessarily feel that they were equipped enough to have those conversations or have the knowledge themselves so that was kind of where the idea came for this resource because I thought actually if I could create something that people can use in their own time or in their own settings yeah and that would be helpful this is primary and secondary yes yes I work in but yeah and early years as well I’ve worked across the different age pages which is it’s it’s good having that kind of seeing how one setting flows to another but also often the recommendations are kind of very similar really no matter what the age is but I get a lot of parents as I’ve said to you we’ve tracked them previously that they contact me and say no when shall I tell my loved one you know my child that you know they’re autistic you know what’s the best age and it’s just you just can’t judge it by doing it that way you’ve got to know the individual know and also their understanding you know yes it’s gonna cause exactly sometimes it’s just like something they need to know or sometimes it might be like I’ve had somewhere they said they already knew yeah so yeah so what sort of experiences have you had and if you had to chip would you choose an age range to tell them yeah so I think in in the work I’ve done I’ve found that often it’s around year four so kind of around seven or eight is when a child will maybe identify difference so they might start noticing kind of maybe they’re getting extra support in class or just noticing that maybe they think in a slightly different way from somebody else in their class so often that’s a time when around that time when maybe a question start being asked from the young person but it’s like you said it’s very tricky because my publishers said I needed to put an age range on the book and like you said I was like well it’s very it’s you know it’s hard to do because it’s so dependent on the individual so in the end we wrote eight plus but I’ve had a lot of people contacting me saying you know I’ve used it with younger children and myself I the young people I’ve worked with it’s more about if the other person is able to reflect on their their own sort of patterns thought patterns and kind of reflect on difference generally and I think that from very young ages you can still do things to help those conversations so even if it’s just looking at fruit and saying you know oh you’ve got an apple and an orange they’re both fruits there’s things that are similar and things are different and kind of just celebrating differences like that and pointing out you know mum wears glasses dad doesn’t wear glasses those kind of sort of subtle things just to have more of a positive understanding of difference generally yeah and then I think and with the books as well some people have said that they’ve started maybe using part of the books because they start off kind of a bit more simplified and then get more complicated so towards the end there’s concepts around the double empathy problem and self-advocacy and things to help the individual kind of be able to advocate for themselves in the future and so it might be that you kind of dip into it and do some of it when they’re a bit younger and then go on to some of the more complicated bits old when they’re older but then I’ve also had adults who have said that they’ve bought their own a copy for themselves maybe a parent or you know just somebody who’s an adult because you don’t always have that opportunity to reflect on your own identity I’ve given a couple of talks at schools when I’ve gone in to do like assemblies and I’ve had a couple of times where you’ve got a child in primary and in secondary where they’ve come to me at the end and just said everything that you’ve been talking about what your son’s experience or people that you work with it sounds like me it just sounds like me and it’s just that something that I might have said that might have rang a little bell in my head and thought that just sounds like me and then I had another one where I had a sibling that came up to me and just said that just sounds like my brother so can you help me type of thing to speak to my mom so yeah just speaking in school sometimes can sort of you know raise definitely further awareness and I think siblings as well because I’ve had young people where they might have a sibling who has got kind of very high support needs might be in a specialist school and then then they get a diagnosis for themselves and they find it very hard to identify with what they thought autism was because they identified that as being their brother or sister and their autism looks quite different yeah definitely that’s like both my sons where Patrick is obviously working and living his own flat when Angelo’s always gonna need one-to-one support and he found it difficult when they said Asperger’s syndrome no longer is part I’m not like Angelo you know I’m completely different to Angelo and that’s where I think some of the stresses are where some individuals you know they want to keep hold of that Asperger diagnosis because they don’t identify with themselves being autistic and then obviously this new label of neurodiversity neurodivergent is in but for me it sort of worries me a little bit and the only reason is is to do with funding because I think is it going to water it down too much there it’s not specific enough I don’t know I’m all like up in the air about that and I’ve had lots of conversations with various people who feel similar to me what do you think yeah it’s a good good question because I was reading something the other day that was talking about kind of they were saying in an ideal world there wouldn’t be any kind of labels and everyone would be able to identify as their sort of unique area of neurodivergence because you were saying maybe you don’t 100% fit one profile or you fit loads of profiles but actually your own unique set of traits but the same I think same thing that you’re saying really is that we’re not at that place in a in terms of the world being inclusive and so like you said if it’s then just like oh well everyone’s a bit neurodivergent it does it really dumbs it down and doesn’t like you said account for yeah yeah but then on the other hand it’s good things and I know a lot of businesses are trying to have more kind of neurodivergent friendly policies and employment sort of schemes and recruitment and things but then also a lot of the time people use the word neurodivergence and actually just just talking about autism so it’s not always inclusive is it and then also that’s obviously for the more how can you say articulate side what about you know people like Angelo that have got minimal verbal skills they can’t speak up for themselves it’s just all very complicated so what feedback have you had from your books and how long did it take you to write both books yeah good question people often ask me that it’s quite hard to say because so I got the contract or I did the initial sort of submission was around May 2021 so and then they were published in March this year 23 so the whole process was kind of nearly two years but the actual writing was probably probably about a year of kind of actual writing and then obviously you have all the sort of publishing side of things in terms of typesetting and proofreading and stuff which yeah I got like family members to proofread because I can’t proofread my own stuff very well I find it hard to spot my own mistakes cuz I just read what I think is there rather than maybe yeah so yeah and then and it’s yeah and then the publishers have obviously been trying to kind of promote it and I’ve done a few different articles and things in relation to the books since they’ve been published so yeah it’s it’s when you held them in your hand yeah it was quite so really because I’d finished writing sort of like last summer about that kind of time and then I didn’t have them until four or five months later it all felt like a bit of a dream really bit surreal but seeing I think the thing that made it feel real was seeing other people with it so people saying you know they’d ordered it and they’d come in the post and imagining Amazon delivery drivers around the country dropping it off that’s quite exciting what about the feedback you had so far yeah it’s been really positive and from quite a range of places so I’ve had there was somebody in America who was was using the books a therapist was using them in his sessions and he was feeding back because at one point I refer to football in the book and he was saying his student was wasn’t very happy because over there they call it soccer I was like well I didn’t yeah I didn’t quite think of that one in terms of the international audience but and yeah it’s been it’s been a positive from a range of people and and like I said I’ve had some individuals where they’ve been working through it with their child and then they’ve wanted to get a copy themselves to kind of explore their own autistic identity and some people have used it as well that don’t necessarily have a diagnosis yet but once they’re almost using it as a kind of like problem-solving tool to pick what their sort of traits look like yeah range of ages and professionals as well so I’ve had like speech therapists using it in their sessions there was some lovely feedback from one therapist who was feeding back to cams and she was going to be focusing on kind of social communications or friendship kind of skills but it started off with the workbook because she felt it was important that he understood his own identity first and she said that sort of the change in him who’s really keen to come to the sessions and just really yeah really positive feedback and then had a positive perception of himself for the first time which is really yeah really lovely to hear because that’s kind of the main aim really.

Yeah people might need to be tweaked or you know I’ve tried it and maybe if you do it this way or something if you had like that sort of feedback. Not really. He must be doing it right then.

Hopefully. I’ve had some requests for other versions like ADHD versions and things. Okay yeah I’ve had that just recently saying about autism Scott, are you thinking of doing ADHD stuff? Yeah I know.

So the books are aimed at children and adults would you say? Yeah they’re aimed at young people but I think it’s yeah you can make what you want from it really. So the workbook is aimed at young people in terms of understanding their own identity kind of. So it starts off in terms of like your personality traits and your physical identity and then goes on to explore you know another aspect of your identity is like neurodiversity and then looking at autism and there’s lots of kind of visual representations in the book as well because that was something that I didn’t want it to be too sort of textbooky.

Yeah. And then there’s sections where the young person can personalize it themselves because that was something I’d experienced in the past when I’d recommended books to parents. They might start going through a book with a young person and then there’d be a point where something in the book wasn’t relevant to them and then they would kind of dismiss it and say well actually that’s not you know it’s not about me because I don’t have that certain trait or I don’t agree with that sort of point.

So that’s why I wanted it to be really personalizable so that it could be really about that person. So there’s lots of sort of if that’s relevant to them so it might be you know prefers working alone for example and then they can say oh you know I don’t like having to do group work in school or I’m much more productive when I can work on my own or can cross it out if actually it’s not relevant to me that one. And then it explores concepts like masking, different kind of communication styles and how you prefer to communicate.

There’s sections on like I said that sort of self-advocacy, how to ask for sort of certain adjustments whether it’s in school, wanting to do your exam in a quieter place or wanting to go somewhere quiet at lunchtime for example. And then it also features for employment just thinking out loud now. I’ve had somebody said that to you before.

Well employment I think it’s something I often come back to because I think a big part of why employment statistics are so low aside from obviously the workplace is not being clued up enough and trained enough and things like that which is a major issue. Is the young person or the individual not necessarily having the confidence to know what they can ask for and understanding their own sort of working styles because I think often there are adjustments that can be made but it’s either too reliant on the person having to ask and they don’t know what they can ask for or you know that culture is not necessarily open enough for those conversations. Yeah okay so yeah I think something like that would be pretty good because I speak to quite a few sort of 18 year olds that might be leaving and they might want to go into the world of work and they’re just like some of the schools that maybe that they’re at they haven’t prepared them enough and they’re not quite sure what they’re stepping into and apprehensive about applying for jobs not sure what job they want to you know all those sort of things I think something like that that you’re talking about I think might be useful.

So why is the autistic identity something you feel is important? I think it’s kind of what I was saying there really in terms of sort of being able to advocate for yourself and also have a positive perception of yourself and then obviously tying in with mental health and well-being. So sometimes I’ll deliver training and things and people say oh you know my aunt thinks they might be autistic but they’re in their 70s is there any point in them exploring it and from my experience from what autistic individuals say that’s so key to have that kind of validation of that part of your identity and it can kind of although it can be tricky sometimes being diagnosed as an adult because you kind of and you know a friend of mine who’s going through the processes at the moment she’s saying having to reframe kind of everything like is is that just my personality is that because of being autistic is that because of things I’ve experienced in life you kind of have to almost go back through your like life archives and recategorize everything. You can’t really go and ask your parents what you were like when you were a child if you’re sort of in your 70s.

Well yeah exactly and even if you’re younger often your parents just see you as you know how you was sort of standard maybe and they certainly see it as being linked to anything else. So I think having that yeah understanding and validation of who you are and then obviously then the acceptance of being part of a community of others who maybe share similar traits to you can be quite empowering and validating for your own mental health and then likewise being able to then know sort of what works for you and what doesn’t work rather than trying to fit into a mould you know the whole square peg round hole thing and masking. I think there was one of the people I feature in the book that’s another thing in the workbook there’s profiles of autistic adults.

One of the people is Holly Smale who’s written a series called Geek Girls for Young for Children. She’s just written a book for adults with an autistic lead character called Cassandra Complex and so when she first wrote her children’s books a lot of people said to her oh like you know your main character’s autistic and she said well no because she’s based on me and I’m not autistic and everyone was like oh okay and the more she was being mentioned she kind of thought oh maybe I should look into this and so she was then diagnosed as autistic in her 40s and then obviously then reframed it and said actually that character obviously is autistic. Well I think it took a while for her as well to initially she was like no that’s definitely not me and so it was a bit of a process for her to accept and explore you know I think she did quite a lot of research into what that actually meant because she had that stereotypical view of autism being little white boys playing with trains and didn’t fit into her experience of the world.

So she had to sort of explore and try and find some more female voices to try and navigate what that actually meant but now she talks quite a lot about her experiences and she’s done articles in quite a lot of mainstream press about her experience dating and various different things as an autistic woman. But she talks about being thinking you’re spending her whole life thinking that she was a duck and actually she was a fish or I can’t quite remember the analogy but it was that whole thing of feeling like she was failing as a duck and then when she realized she was a fish thinking I’m pretty good fish. So being able to then obviously often have greater self-esteem because you’re not feeling like you’re a failure the whole time and there’s been quite a bit of research into that in terms of self-esteem as an adult and well-being in autistic individuals linked to having a positive understanding of your autistic identity and being part of a kind of wider autistic community which is why obviously the work you’re doing around autism got talent and building those friendships and stuff is so key really having these opportunities.

So if people want to try and get hold of your books where can they find them? So they’re on amazon so the second book that I didn’t mention so much the guide book is basically a kind of a guide for parents or professionals to understand what autism is and also to understand kind of how to have those conversations and how to use the workbook because like I said earlier on a lot of parents are saying I don’t really know where to start and what to say and what not to say so there’s a bit of kind of myth busting and examples of how you could actually use the workbook with young person so as a professional it might be that you want to break it down into a certain number of sessions to deliver in school or as parents to use about home so it’s on amazon but also you can get it via the publishers which is Routledge so it’s on their website as well and I think actually you can get it via most online bookshops, Smiths and Waterstones and things and I did get sent a picture of the day somebody has spotted it in the Waterstones store in Birmingham so if you are looking for it go and mention you mentioned that you’re after it in the store because I went in originally to my local store and asked about doing a kind of small event there and they eventually came back to me and said oh we don’t think there’s much sort of demand for that in this area I thought well there is okay so I’m encouraging people to go and ask for it or just ask for autism books generally because obviously that helps with the wider community being a bit more understanding and aware of what is and if you see it in more mainstream stores. Yeah did you do a book launch? So I had a couple of events I had one in a secondary school that I’d worked quite closely with so a lot of the young people that I work with there had given quotes and things that are included in the book so I had an event there and then I had an event in a different Waterstones store that did want to do it a different branch so that was really nice actually seeing the book in or the books in a real life store rather than just online. Did you have to buy both books together or can you buy them separately? You can buy them separately yeah okay so some people just buy the workbook because they feel confident in kind of having those conversations with the young person and they already know enough about autism and then some initially buy the guide books they want to sort of get their own background knowledge sort of sorted first before they then go on to use the workbook with the young person.

Okay so if you’d missed out those links that Rebecca spoke about they’re on the charity website if you look on the latest news page you’ll see an article that Rebecca has written and there’s some useful links within the article so have you got any more books planned that you might like to proceed after you’ve got your baby? I know yeah timing’s not I don’t know if it’s good or not really I was I had to kind of manage for my own time and expectations because the publishers were talking about different books and I was quite excited and then I thought hang on like I have no idea what life’s going to be like for the next few months. Maybe keep that all down really in texture and get used to your new baby. Exactly so I think what I might do is do some work on different books if I have time without there being sort of a deadline and then go to the publishers and say oh I’ve written this but yeah there’s been a few ideas.

I know something a few people mentioned was having sort of almost like a guide for grandparents. That is a good one. Yeah wider family members that you can just sort of post that to them and say read this and then come back to me and also kind of a more basic book around sort of understanding autism maybe for parents of younger children but I know there’s lots of different kind of I think it’s an expanding area there’s more and more books coming out which is really good.

Yeah I think it won’t be good as well because you know what I’m hearing more and more of children and adults being bullied because of their autism and whether they’re in school whether they’re in the community or whether they’re definitely online is more and more it’s just because they’re trying to make friendships and then they end up being bullied or make crimes another one so I was just thinking I actually had a young lady that messaged me I know very well and she’s come off social media now she’s an adult but she it’s really affected her being bullied online and she said I said to her do you want me do you want to write something and I’ll put it on the charity website you don’t have to say who you are and so she said that she would and she um felt comfortable with doing it so I just wanted to I promised I would read it so I’m going to so it’s just when Anna asked me to write a blog for her website it really made my day all my life I’ve been bullied and now I’m being bullied online as well I love helping people it’s a huge passion of mine I mostly speak and struggle with communication and social interaction but I always try my hardest I connect with I connected with Anna on social media and I enjoy helping her share all things related to her charity and the different things I love and support I do this because I enjoy spending time helping share the word to reach more people and raise awareness about topics close to my heart such as autism over the last three months people are being unkind to me I feel pressured used and hurt I didn’t realize doing a good thing or a good turn into something so awful even though I can mute and block people people seem to be able to sign up using a different name there doesn’t seem to be any barriers to stop this and this is not nice I’ve had to come off social media because I’m very anxious and scared it’s affecting my mental health along with made me feel terrible that I’ve let people down the people who are kind and appreciate my help and support I do want to be brave and not let these people get to me but it’s just not easy I feel bad for anyone in sin or similar situation I wish I could do something to make social media easier more positive and a better experience for everybody with or without autism technology and software is always changing so I’m sure there should be a solution very soon I haven’t found it yet but I’m not going to give up thank you for giving me a voice Anna so that’s just like awful because she used to like she shared lots of information like from my charity not from just my charity but lots of different charities groups articles that she found adverts that she might have found and she used to do it every day and she was always up there sharing stuff and very positive person but it’s just really effective now so yeah it’s just and I think with I know of young people are similar in similar situations and I think there definitely needs to be something done like she’s saying there seems to also be different patterns on different social media networks so I know every young person who’s come away from Twitter for that reason but finds Instagram a bit more of a kind of friendly I think Instagram is definitely more friendly and I’ll speak to someone and they said it’s harder to be a troll or a bully on there because you usually link to your family on Instagram so that you wouldn’t want to be seen but Twitter is definitely it can be positive it can also be quite toxic and they sort of go around in packs like attacking people it’s just yeah not good so hopefully with all policies and changes and laws hopefully coming into place that it will be able to stop I just can’t think of why people would want to make people feel miserable and then keep creating different profiles as well it’s just like what you wonder what’s going on for them as well yeah yeah definitely but it’s just like why make make people miserable so this is getting away from her now sure she yeah anything else that she can do oh I guess in terms of books as well that’s something I’d thought about a lot before is about educating the wider class um in terms of autism so again like things like autism awareness week or acceptance week um the focus is often on like you know we we all run a series of events in our local area um but often it will be the people who already know a lot about autism who come along whereas you kind of with awareness events generally the aim is not really targeted at the person who that thing affects it’s about everybody else being more aware and therefore being a kind of more inclusive society yeah so I think with schools I talk a lot about you know having things in place through the year so having things like displays up in school like an autism pride display so that when you know new new students come but also existing students who might have just been started to explore a diagnosis or have one for their siblings they can see themselves represented in a sort of celebratory display up on the wall and things like assemblies having books that are read as part of the class the class reader and things like that and in the library um and kind of embedded across the curriculum because then those people are going to be the future employers and co-workers and if we can actually educate people from a young age and see it as you know recognize the positives associated with being autistic that will hopefully help to make a big shift for the next generation yeah the other thing that worries me on twitter as well is that sometimes it’s like an autistic person that may be bullying um others yeah sometimes it’s parents sometimes it’s other autistic people and for me what worries the worries that I have is that potential employers that watch this on social media might think I don’t think I want to employ somebody with this sort of behavior you know I mean I just think they’re not doing themselves any favor and that’s the thing as well isn’t it with this generation and and how social media has changed so much is that I don’t think people always realize that everyone can see what you’re writing yeah that is you kind of forget sometimes that it’s uh you know global platform and people can check like you said employers can have a look at what you’re saying and that’s not always a good thing well and sometimes you’ve got like you know everyone should have a voice and for me within the autism community everyone should be networking together and supporting each other not attacking each other and sometimes you get like some autistic individuals where I have no parents have actually come off social media because they’re being attacked because they think they don’t have the right to speak about autism because they’re not autistic and it’s for me it’s just like I can’t even get my head around that it’s just about everyone you know has to have a voice within the autumn community whether you’re a parent whether you’re a carer whether you’re a sibling whether you’re autistic yourself you know it’s just about talking about your perspective and talking about how you’re supporting your um loved one so like for example I don’t share I always share positive things because I think there’s just too much negativity going on out there but you know I sometimes I share you know my oh I’ve had a night with Angela or you know he doesn’t tend to want to sleep very much but that’s an ongoing thing we call it like the wider weight club but then some of the parents might go into more detail about what’s been happening but then they get attacked and it’s so that then they just feel like yeah it’s just I just think sometimes they’re just having a bad day you know they’re struggling and they just want to share with somebody they just want to make the day worse by being attacked I know I know it’s just like you gotta just try and find that that line where it’s yeah and it shows as well doesn’t it the need for um like in-person groups as well where you’ve got kind of a safe place where you can meet other parents yeah but and it’s you know you know that those conversations are going to stay in that room kind of thing but yeah that’s why sometimes this book is good for that sort of thing but then some parents can get attacked yeah but I think I mean with the books I decided I like made a conscious effort to try and include um as many autistic individuals and their voices as possible because I know um I think that kind of anger comes from it’s not it’s not about that parent sharing their opinion it’s about the wider sort of system of like you know autistic characters in films not being cast to autistic actors you know really somebody who’s neurotypical playing an autistic character for example um and then so it’s like you know the whole that phrase of nothing without nothing about us without us yeah because obviously previously there was a lot of sort of stuff being done to individuals rather than them being involved in research and things like that um so I can see where it comes from but I can but it’s not helpful like for that for that poor parent who’s just trying to get some advice in that situation like you said it’s identifying actually we’re um trying to hopefully help each other so I had some really nice feedback from um Spectrum Gaming um the guy Andy there and he’d um got hold of the books and resources and wrote a lovely review because he was saying you know what you’re saying there really in terms of um sometimes resources are created by people who aren’t autistic and they might not be that relevant or they haven’t sort of had their autistic voice embedded through the process yeah um and he was singing the praises saying how good it was because I’d um like I said had a lot of young people who had given quotes that are featured in the book because I thought that was quite key for young people to be able to read you know other examples um and then the um images that there’s some that I designed myself but then the image is done by an illustrator I made sure I found an autistic illustrator um and then we had like autistic reviewers and an autistic young person who acted as a consultant to kind of just go through find a detail of layout yeah yeah that’s what we did with our stop and search document with the Metropolitan Police because my husband’s autistic he brought the brunt of it but then we opened it up to the Autism the National Autism Police Association we opened it up to lots of different autistic individuals and they had their input um so yeah I think it’s best where you know collaboration is key definitely yeah yeah just in kind of incorporating the mixture of different voices because obviously um the for me it was about my experience in education and teaching and wanting to share that but I also wanted to um be able to kind of lift up the voices of other young people as well so can you you know I was I think I might have chatted about this to you before but when you were younger do you think that when you were at school that there might have been autistic people that were in your class that you thought afterwards oh right yeah maybe yeah definitely um and it’s funny how because I think so when I first started working when I finished uni it it was I didn’t know a great deal about autism at all even though I’d done a psychology degree um so I was kind of wary when I first started the job because I wasn’t sure really what to expect um and so then and then I’ve had like friends of mine whose children have been diagnosed um or exploring diagnosis um kind of as as they’re getting older um but looking at my own kind of experiences um yeah deaf there’s definitely people within school setting who maybe were just sort of seen as quirky or yeah had like different sort of sets of interest to the the sort of stereotypical norm I guess um and then and even yeah in terms of like friends and family you kind of I think I can’t remember um I think it was Tony Atwood who worked in autism research for years and years and years yeah and then discovered his child was autistic but had missed it himself um because sometimes you’re when you’re focusing on it with one hat on um you don’t necessarily see it in closer situations I guess yeah yeah but I think and obviously again that’s another reason why sort of grandparents sometimes can find it hard to well and parents to to kind of accept that their child may be autistic is yeah they’ll often say oh well in my day we didn’t have any of this um I’ve heard that so many times and obviously it’s it’s really good now that there’s more understanding and recognition um but yeah it was it was kind of yeah wasn’t wasn’t a thing that was talked about or recognized previously um but even now that I mean when you do a PGC to train to become a teacher you get about half a day on SCN and that’s all you know all strands yeah is that still looking oh my word no and I think it’s people are campaigning to try and improve it but that was what um I was told recently um and obviously so that so in terms of autism you probably get like half an hour I know I I did get very limited oh that’s just like because I spoke to teachers you know when I used to go to my Zumba classes that they said they’ve got sort of 30 kids in the class and then you’ve probably got about 10 to 15 of the children with all various different diagnoses yeah and um you know not much training at all and like frustration with not enough resources um maybe just having one teaching assistant to help um yeah yeah and I always remember this particular um teacher she just said one particular day she just got so overwhelmed and frustrated with the whole thing wanting to try and help but and she just said she had to go into the um resources cupboard just shut the door for a few minutes so she just shed a few tears of frustration then got herself together and came back out of the cupboard it shouldn’t be like that no it shouldn’t it’s just yeah system could be a little bit overwhelming so talking about being overwhelmed and because women’s radio we always promote mental health and well-being what do you do obviously having a baby now what do you did you used to do to help you relax um you know just step away from work help you recharge um what did you used to do well I think one of the main things um that i’ve got into the habit and especially since lockdown is having a daily walk um because I think time outside um you know looking up at the sky and just being outside in nature basically definitely has um a positive effect for me it can help to like reset my brain really um so i’ve got a bit of possessive about that i do try and have some time outside every day even if it’s just um what i’ll sometimes do is if i’ve got like 20 minutes i will um set a timer and walk in one direction for 10 minutes and then just turn around and come back um so i know that i’ve got that um kind of yeah allocated time to you’ve got any parks or that near you yeah i’m quite lucky i’ve got um we’ve got some sort of fields at the end of the road actually and in quite a few parks and green spaces so um that’s quite nice or even just like early evening walking around the road sometimes can be comparing to people’s houses and that’s you it’s me no but um so so yeah that’s one of the main main things um i think definitely being by water is one of the things that really recharges me so i try and get down like down to the south coast or even just being by a river um but i do i’ve always loved swimming like swimming in the sea um and um paddle boarding i got into a couple of years ago as well that’s one thing i can’t do swim i’ve got it on my bucket list oh i remember when i was at school i well all i got was like a 50 meter certificate that was for doing doggy paddle i just panic when i can’t feel the floor it’s just it’s just that whole panic so i would love to learn how to swim and my son patrick he learned how to swim but he was petrified until he put goggles on and that was the turning point for him and angela is still petrified of water um as in even when you wash wash him that they’ve got to do it a certain way and and sometimes like when you’re trying to wash his hands it’s almost like he’s been scolded even though he does it every day it’s just like quite it’s quite weird sometimes it doesn’t bother him at all but it’s just i don’t know which it’s that’s the frustration and the difficulty when they can’t communicate and tell you what it’s matter so yeah so sorry um you’ve got a couple of more minutes so paddle boarding so how’s that going for you yeah well obviously i haven’t been able to do it since being pregnant i’m not sure my center of gravity would um be quiet but um i’m hopeful i’m probably optimistically hopeful but it would be nice if i could get you know to do it once before winter comes so we’ll see um but um yeah i found that really relaxing because you you tend to only really be able to do it when the water is quite calm so it’s it’s normally like you know nice calm day and you can just even lie down on your paddle board and just sort of be floating and on the water and um it’s a kind of that and dancing and the two sort of forms of exercise that i don’t really feel like you’re exercising yeah so can you dance do you like um well dance i used to like as a child i think i learnt ballet and things like that but it’s more kind of um just modern like a bit of zumba kind of style really when i was was doing some um uh classes that was just kind of in fact actually one of them was like a um i think it was called fit steps that was strictly so there was different routines oh yeah and Ian Waite i think did that yes yeah yeah when he started it with i forgot the other lady’s name now the blonde yeah yeah no no no i think dance is a good way to yeah be stressed and yeah think about anything um and just sort of get into the rhythm and it’s it’s good for everything it’s good keep me flexible keep me feeling young all that sort of thing yeah yeah and i think things like journaling and stuff like that i have kind of got in and out of the habit of doing that like writing a diary and stuff it’s something i’ve dipped in and out of over the years particularly it tends to be more stressful situations i’ll write down you know to kind of unpack what’s going on um but then you can end up with a book full of like moaning oh well it’s been lovely talking to you and i want to wish you the best of luck with your um pregnancy so you’ve got long to go so you can please um try and have some quite time as much as you can but thank you so much and um thank you to everyone listening in as well and um i will be speaking to you very soon and keep updated with the charity website it’s www.anna Kennedy online.com you’ll be able to read Rebecca’s article on the latest news page so thank you very much everyone the phone’s ringing so somebody wants my help thank you bye