Hello, this is Anna Kennedy and we’re talking all things autism and what a busy few weeks I have had because, as you know, due to lockdown and Covid, we’ve moved all our events to later on in the year because we haven’t done anything for two years and now we’re doing three big events in something like 12 weeks. We are so busy, so the first one that we did a couple of weeks ago was Autism’s Got Talent, The Roadshow at St Ives, which was absolutely amazing and we were so lucky to use the Kids R Us Theatre to digital theatre and the background was just, oh wow, it was just, it could lend itself to each performer, what they needed for their background, so yeah, and everyone was still buzzing at St Ives. And then on Saturday, well Friday we did what was called the Meet and Greet with all our 18 autistic performers that came from across the United Kingdom and also the United States.

So we had Scott Edgar that came from all the way from the United States who performed for us on stage. At the beginning of the week it was a little bit stressful with hotel rooms, you know, not being booked properly or not giving acknowledgement numbers or whatever it was that we were going through. So it was a bit of a stressful few days because we were trying to put up 16 people and then after that on Friday, meet and greet, everything fell into place.

Saturday morning is what we do, technical rehearsals. So we’re doing technical rehearsals from 9 o’clock in the morning right up till 5 o’clock when everyone’s got to be dressed and then at 5 o’clock we’ll have photographs on stage and then on the red carpet, 6 o’clock, the doors open. You can feel the buzz in the air and everyone getting excited and then the show started at 7 o’clock and wow, what a show it was.

It finished at 10 and the audience was so warm, so welcoming. What I like when I see our performers is that when they start doing the technical rehearsal, some of them had never performed on stage before. So you could see they were a little bit nervous but then once they’re out there on the stage at the night with family and friends out in the audience, step it up like 200%.

We had amazing singers, drummers, poets, guitarists, bands, oh it was just, I just can’t even tell you, I’m still on a high as you can hear from my voice and I just got a message this morning and I just wanted to read it to you just to give you an idea. It’s hi, it’s Josh from Orton Scott Talent. I just wanted to say thank you for choosing me to play my drums.

I’m still buzzing away and I cannot quite believe what happened that night and it’s put about 10 exclamation marks. I felt so happy and excited. I never thought anything like that would happen to me.

You Phil, who’s our main compare and Lisa who I work with is my PA and everyone there are amazing people and all so lovely. You really do make dreams come true. I will never forget this night.

I hope I can stay in touch with you and I would love to help you with any future shows in any way I can. Thank you with all my heart and a big special drum roll just for you. It’s just such a lovely family as well and on the Friday night his mom said, he’s just kissed me on the cheek and said, mom, I’m so happy and excited.

And she said he’s 22. He’s never kissed me on the cheek of his own volition. I’ve always had to ask him and he’s just done it now on stage while we’re walking around and giving them a bit of a tour and just saying how excited he was.

And those for me are the special moments and that’s why we do what we do to give. And this young man, he was amazing on the drums. I can’t even tell you.

We’re going to be creating a highlights video, but he was flinging the sticks up and down and still play, crossing his arms. It was just like you had to, you just couldn’t believe it. His performance was mesmerizing.

And as I say, we had Scott Edgar come all the way from Orlando, Florida, and he did animation voices of people like Mickey Mouse, all Disney characters. He was just so good and a really, really lovely chap. And he actually asked me for a job if he could work for the show.

Somebody else, I’ll just give you a few of the performers. There were so many, but Aston, as you know, is one of my ambassadors. He continues to work tirelessly raising autism awareness.

He’s a daytime radio presenter because Aston and I do a show that’s called All Things Autism and Essex. Aston has had a tough journey along the way with being diagnosed with autism and lots of health problems since he was young, even considering taking his own life He’s decided to turn his negative thoughts into positive ones and become passionate about giving back to society. Aston was awarded a scholarship to Pineapple Performing Arts and he absolutely loves going there every Sunday.

And he’s now renamed his Sunday Happy Sunday. So Pineapple Performing Arts has also been supporting us for 10 years and they’ve given us nine scholarships in total for our autistic children and adults that are part of the charity. So that’s amazing.

So now I am going to introduce you to Tanya Farley. So Tanya is the co-founder of that autism hands-on approach. And that’s a conference that was set up by herself and other members of the committee.

Her motivation came from the fact that she’s a parent of an autistic young man who’s now 22 years old. We’re going to talk a little bit more about her son James. And his son is not verbal and has considerable sensory processing difficulties and needs a high level of care and support.

So welcome, Tanya. All the way from Stockport I believe, is that right? Hi Anna, thanks so much for having me on. Yeah, all the way from Stockport and very wet Manchester as quite often it is.

So before we talk about autism, before we talk about your conference and everything that you have been doing, just tell the audience a little bit about yourself so that you can get a little bit of a snapshot of who you are, where you were born and anything you feel comfortable sharing. Okay, okay Anna. Well, I’m a wife and a mother of four kids.

My oldest, I’ve got three boys, a little girl. My oldest son James is 22, had a diagnosis of autism and it had to be a learning difficulty. I’ve got a 21 year old son, 15 and a half year old son and an 11 year old daughter, well 12 year old daughter up, he just had a birthday.

Yeah, so we got a diagnosis for James when he was about two and a half I would say, from about 18 months I think we were, we were becoming aware that something wasn’t quite right in his development and by the time and I kind of recorded a lot of that and wrote a lot of stuff down and kind of just looked up autism. I think there was a lot on the television at the time about autism. My husband says he remembered him saying, do you think James is autistic? Anyway, by the time we got to the neurologist, I think it was more or less had an essay on autism and he said, I think you’ve diagnosed this really, haven’t you? So yeah, he had some language at first, he lost the language, he called it that, he lost it again and then yeah, so you know, it’s been a very uneven profile and it’s been an up and down journey but we got a diagnosis when he was about two and a half.

And how do you feel about that? Oh, it was very difficult, it was very difficult. I’ve always said, I think that process of realising that some development, not as you were expecting with your car is very challenging. And I think with autism, my experience is you just don’t know what you’re dealing with.

It’s not like a physical impairment, you can see it or you know what it means. You just don’t really know what it’s going to mean and what the final outcome, like you don’t know anyone’s final outcome, appreciate that but you don’t know what you’re dealing with. And I thought it was intensely stressful quite honestly, I think it was one of the worst experiences of my life.

But you have to go through that process and when you want to get on top of it and you understand that it’s all about the child and then no different from how they were the day before and you start to get your head around the whole thing, then of course, you start to accept it, then of course it’s a different thing. And you know, we absolutely adore James and we’ve learned an enormous amount from him. I always say he’s completely changed my life journey and I would never have ended up doing the conference or meeting all the amazing people or just sort of learning the stuff about parenting that I have if it wasn’t for him.

Have you ever met any other children on the spectrum before or did you know anything? I know you said that at the time there was some information on the television but did you actually know what the condition was or what to expect or anything like that? I had absolutely no idea about it. I couldn’t recall people with disability at my school. Thinking back now, I realised there definitely were some autistic people at the school but I wasn’t aware of it.

I had no life experience of autism at all. So, you know, it was difficult. It was difficult to get your head around it.

But I did a lot of, the way I dealt with it was I did a lot of reading. I just buried myself in sort of intellectual, I suppose. My husband didn’t pick up a book, so it was quite a good combination.

And I actually acquired quite a lot of knowledge, not knowledge that way. And then when it came to the conference which is coming together, I realised I had picked up quite a lot of knowledge about the condition from just the reading and the people who were in the world of autism at the time. I mean, this is 18 years ago, so things have changed a lot.

And I was lucky, I had good support actually at the time, I have to say. I was going to ask you about support because obviously you’ve gone on to have three more children. So how has it been juggling James and then your three children and what’s their relationship like? Right, well, I was very lucky at the time.

At the time, Stepping Hill Hospital where we got our diagnosis, had a very good support network for autism. The early years provision, it was under a very impressive neurologist, I think, can’t quite remember his name now. But he had, and they had a specialist, speech language therapist, specialist health visitor.

There was actually a lot of support in place. They found their way to me and were helpful actually. And then he had a multidisciplinary diagnosis, which again was helpful.

And we’ve had really good support from the staff all the way through. I’m very lucky, just fortuitously, I live within about three miles of two very well-established women autism provisions, which is unusual. Something called the Together Trust, the Seashell Trust, and also the local authority schools are very good here, the primary special school and the senior special school.

So James went into the authority system and he went into an integrated ministry from about three, which was very local to me conveniently. It’s like people need to move to stop pause. Honestly, I have been really lucky and he’s had really good support.

I mean, I know there’s not many people that always say that, but I feel we’ve been incredibly lucky. And yeah, he went into the system. So he was a very good little boy.

He wasn’t a difficult child. I mean, he was demanding that you have to watch him and he was very happily behaved. He didn’t have aggressive behavior.

He had unusual behaviors, but you need to keep your eye on him all the time. But he wasn’t a difficult child in that way. He was compliant and sweet.

And he was no trouble to his siblings actually. They felt much more irritating to him. So that really wasn’t, they’ve always been really sweet with him.

And I have to say, I think growing up in a house with a sibling with special needs only completely improves the other children, completely, you know, improves them as individuals and their awareness of the world and their ability to be compassionate and kind and all of that sort of stuff. I think that’s before my other parents have said exactly the same and I totally agree with what you’re saying. So how was schooling for him then? So you talked about that, you know, he went to nursery and so did he get one-to-one support? It was an integrated nursery, which means, which I’m sure you’ll know, but it means, you know, a neurotypical kid and some kids with special needs.

And at the time, and it was a specialist provision actually, and I remember at the time going there and being a bit upset there wasn’t when he got into the, there was then an autism specific unit, which he then moved into. But I realised that it wasn’t actually very much therapy. It’s obviously everywhere, it’s talking, everything.

And I thought, well, he’s gone to the specialist provision in the country, in our area and there isn’t any therapy. What do you mean, like speech and language or occupation? Language, occupation, it was all very, very short been on the ground and physio. He doesn’t actually need physio.

Right. So I then had to have, I had to get his statement rewritten to be specific about what he needed. And obviously it was all new to me.

I didn’t know that. He obviously had a statement. He’s very much, you know, there wasn’t any discussion that James needed special education.

We knew he did. But I remember sitting in front of, and it was a wonderful school and the headteacher was fabulous, but I remember sitting in front of a whole panel of people with my husband, with an OT we found and a few other people on our side, they’re sort of saying there isn’t, you know, there isn’t, where is the therapy? Anyway, I remember the headteacher saying to me, actually, we can’t put gold down for visioning for one child. And I felt my blood boil.

As I said, well, this is a specialist school. Every child here deserves the best. You know, these are the most compromised kids, you know.

You know, I was more or less in tears at the time, actually. And the speech and language the head of therapy on the other side was also nearly in tears of sympathy. Anyway, after that, there was a fantastic educational office, S.E.N. office at the time, and he upped the game and put proper therapy in after that.

So, yeah, that was very good. So I suppose I’ve been, you know, outspoken people from the beginning, really. But it was a very good day.

It was quite odd that a school for children with special educational needs didn’t really have speech and language therapy. It didn’t have enough. It didn’t have enough.

Oh, right. It had some. But it wasn’t what you it wasn’t getting what I felt there.

So, yeah, they changed that, actually. It’s very good. It seems much better, essentially.

So, yeah, we had a good a good experience after that. It was an all friendly unit after that. And then he went into the state special as well.

Things was he interested in? James is James needs a quite straightforward. He he likes food. He likes travel.

He likes walking. He’s not, you know, he’s difficult to keep, you know, he wants it on the computer or anything like that. He likes sensory import massage and native blankets and things.

But in terms of keeping him occupied, it’s actually quite, quite a time, really. We best off, you know, been moving out and about getting in a litter picking or whatever, you know, an activity of that type. Right.

OK. All right. And so at 16, you he went to residential.

Now I get many parents that message me that say I’m like in a quandary. I’m hopping from one foot to the other. I know, you know, I’m finding it difficult having my son or my daughter at home, but then there’s the possibility of an offer of going to residential.

Am I being a bad parent? All those sort of things that I can totally understand how you would feel. So can you talk just for people that are listening in that might be at this particular stage now or next year thinking, do I send my son or daughter to residential? What how was it for you? How how did you feel about sending your son to? And what was the process like? Well, I think for us, it was sort of gradual. From from about eight, we tried to take James aboard and it was an absolute nightmare.

Quite frankly, he was very unhappy. He were very unhappy and he escaped out of the apartment into the complex and, you know, we couldn’t find it half an hour and all that kind of thing. So after that experience, I came back and I realized that we needed to get some respite if we were ever going to sort of have a holiday abroad, certainly anyway, and a one that actually did all of us some good, because actually James doesn’t really benefit from being out of his environment.

He likes what he knows. So we campaigned. Well, I went then to ask if I could have some respite, which we did get.

But that was like a couple of days a month or something. So we’d save it up if we wanted to do anything a bit longer than that. Again, I was very lucky.

That is local as well. And that worked very well. That worked well too.

He was from about eight to 16. At 16, he, everybody started to find James very challenging. In all of his specialist environments, he was, they weren’t, nobody was managing him really well.

So by the time I then, if he could go to a residential facing, which again is newer, they, which has an educational aspect to it, everybody actually agreed because they just weren’t, it wasn’t working at all. He was unhappy. He was very, he was starting to be aggressive, which he hadn’t been before.

He was, we speak to a few televisions and the stained glass on the front door and things. Things were getting, you know, things were getting very hairy. And so he started at this fabulous place near us.

And the idea was that he would have a split week. He would be three. I didn’t want him to leave at all.

I mean, but we were all finding it very, very difficult to manage. And I would, I want him to be three days at home and four days there. But that proceeded to be a very, very difficult year.

I think one, he was unhappy. I think it was all new to him. His educational provision, moving out of home.

I think he was homesick, even though he was with us after the week. Yeah. He was incredibly unsettled and he started ultimately to self-harm, which we’ve never had before.

And that I think is one of the most challenging things to deal with. There’s very little that I think floors me. But I think that that is incredibly difficult.

And he was hurting himself. And actually it was the basement that said, you know, really, he just seemed to be here full time. We’re nearby, so we can see him as much as we want.

He comes home regularly. But at least once a week, if not more than that. But it’s been a much better situation because it’s enabled him to have a very stable house with a couple of other people and obviously staff.

It’s enabled a very much more consistent staff team. And it’s just enabled them to get a much more stable better for him. And that’s what he really needs is really, really competent, knowledgeable staff who really get him.

And that’s the best situation for James. So how long is he going to be there till he’s 25? Well, you get a three-year slot really from whenever you start. Right.

It doesn’t take him to 25. It takes him to next year, next summer. But we are actually campaigning for an extra year because we’re trying to get a future place and talk it out and it just won’t be ready in time.

And he can’t afford to transition more than once. And I definitely I’ll be in prayer enough. So, you know, once is enough.

Yeah, yeah. And he’s got to get that ready. All right then.

So let’s talk about, actually, let’s talk about lockdown because obviously that’s been quite difficult for a lot of people. I’ve chattered to so many parents where it hasn’t been that bad. Okay, it’s been dreadful.

Or it’s like they’ve got parents where they’ve said, well, it’s not really that much different from us because my son’s at home anyway. So he doesn’t like growing out. So how is it for you? And for your son being in residential, we were able to see him.

You know, what was the process like? We weren’t able to see him for quite a lot of the time first in the first lockdown. We weren’t. And actually, well, lockdown itself was going fine with the nice weather.

Other kids were at home. It was actually very pleasant at first and quite chilled. It was hard not seeing James, but he was very happy and lockdown suited him perfectly, quite frankly, because he didn’t have to get to college.

Didn’t have to do any of the things that brought additional pressure on him. He was quite happy with that. Unfortunately, my father-in-law died of COVID in the early, very early on in lockdown.

So that was very challenging. And my brother-in-law was very unwell. Thank God he’s made a full recovery, but he really was from a ventilator in intensive care.

It was very stressful. And to be honest, I think James in the mix at that point probably would have been been a step too far, to be honest. So the fact that he was happy and he was where he was was really a blessing.

Subsequently, things got back to normal and we’d be able to see him. And it’s been fine and much more relaxed. So yeah, actually, knockdown from that point of view was not difficult from the James point of view, in honesty, it was just difficult from everything else.

But we’re all here to tell the tale just about. So that’s okay. We do have parents that listen in where their children have just been recently diagnosed or parents do think, oh, I’m not quite sure if my son or my daughter might be on the spectrum.

In hindsight, could you give any advice or any tips that you would share with a parent that’s just starting the process now? What I think is, if you’ve got a worry or a concern about your child, then you probably have a reason. You’re the parent, you know best. Don’t hold anything else.

And if you’ve got any concerns about your child, I would go and get into the system and get them, get professional help as quickly as you can. And you don’t, it’s not about a diagnosis or particularly, although that can be useful in the long run. I think the most important thing is early intervention and getting some input.

And really, I remember in the very early days I was speaking to the speech service and saying, the stuff that people think comes instinctively and naturally doesn’t always come instinctively and naturally. I mean, even silly things like just getting down on the floor, eye to eye contact, you know, doing the balloon thing. I’m sure you’ve done that, I know 123, getting eye contact and all of that sort of stuff.

It’s not as well. It wasn’t instinctive. I didn’t come that naturally to me.

And once obviously I was shown and I watch the speech therapists and things do stuff, I started to get it. But I don’t think that anybody will be disadvantaged from learning those things. They’re very simple techniques and very simple philosophies about following the child and following the child’s lead and following the child’s interest and dampening down additional demands on the child and keeping your language simple and trying to get eye contact and all of that sort of stuff, which I think are really, really simple, quite straightforward principles.

And I think are very helpful to be told in the early days. And if you were practicing that with the child, if it turns out there’s no problem, with the child, that’s wonderful. And that’s going to be in any way harmed by approaching it like there is a bit of a difficulty.

And if there is a difficulty, then you’ve got into it early and you’ve also got something to do. I think what parents find really, well, what I found very difficult was you just don’t know what to do and you’re at sea and you’re, you know, I found tremendous anxiety suggested didn’t have a clue what I was, what to do about it. And I would have found it so much more helpful if somebody said to me, this is a really good strategy.

Just do this, this and this, half an hour a day and see how you get on. I don’t think it needs to be a 10-hour program. I think that puts enormous pressure on parents and families, which is unhelpful.

But my personal view is you just need to have a set of principles to start integrating with the child and practicing those with the child. And it can’t hurt. You know, it’s not going to do the many harm and it might do some good if there is a problem.

And I do think the early start the better. I think there’s any concern at all it should be starting early intervention with children without the diagnosis and practicing these sort of trauma-led, sensitively applied principles. Yeah, it can be quite overwhelming when you start reading about all the various different approaches and it’s just like, how much do I choose? How do I know which ones are suitable for my son? Because I remember one, obviously, it was a long time ago in the 1996, it wasn’t, I think it was 1997, I can’t remember though, when they were diagnosed, there was just like, not a lot of information out there.

And then when you started trying to find, I think I counted something like 16 different strategies of working with children who were autistic and I thought, oh, I don’t know which one I need to use because obviously, both my sons were so different from each other. You know, has minimal verbal skills, you know, quite significant sensory processing condition, nocturnal epilepsy, you know, gets very, very anxious. And for example, it might be very, very sunny outside and we always go the same, walk the same route or all those various different things that constantly change all the time, various different challenges.

Then you’ve got another son that’s, you know, hungry for information all the time, constantly asking you questions, reading the dinosaurs or about reading about, whatever their interest is at the time and testing you about them to make sure that you’ve read them correctly or listen to them correctly. So it’s quite a minefield and obviously, it’s quite stressful, I think, for parents to think, like, I want the best way forward for my sons or my daughters. So I just think that if you can get someone to help you, someone that’s been through the process as well, especially when you go to these meetings, I’m always saying they can be quite daunting, especially when you’ve never been to them before.

It almost sounds like they’re talking a different language when you’re just starting up in this process. So I think the key is to get someone from either a support group or someone who’s been through the process before to help you or just chat with you or just listen to you. What do you think, Tanya? Yeah, I mean, I think that that’s true.

I think all the, I know I went to a lot of, quite a lot of parents support stuff, whatever I could find at the time and I found that really helpful. I find parents are really good source of information and in the early days, it was probably my best recourse, really. I think there was some evening classes and stuff, workshops around autism as well at the local ministries and things like that and I also attended that.

I think that’s quite helpful. I think you do, I think it was helpful to have some sort of program to go on quite early, early on and even if it isn’t all applicable to you, it just gives you a bit of a framework and also just talking to other people and saying both is obviously always, always helpful. So yeah, I mean things have moved on a lot.

I think things have improved, you know, it’s been bound really, the awareness and everything as we’ve gone along. I’ve always felt lucky that James was born when he was and I think 10 years early would have been an absolute nightmare and things have improved. I’ve got this.

Well, there we were. Yeah. So talk to me about your conference.

So when did you set up the conference? Well, if they might be listening in, they might want to, you know, join you on Tuesday, Monday the 9th. and it is online. We originally held it in Stockport, Stepping Hill Hospital at the conference center there, but obviously the app last year with COVID went online and this year I checked it online.

So the conference sort of emerged because about 19 years ago I was talking to the Stockport consultant for communicable diseases or infectious diseases. So the person who did the MMR program and they happened to say, there was obviously a lot of controversy about MMR and autism at the time and they happened to say, oh, it’d be really interesting to do a conference on autism. And I said, yeah, that’s a great idea.

So I think there were then the impression that the conference brought information to gather in one place quickly and gave you a view of it all. I sort of badgered this consultant for a long time and then he called me and he said, all right, then let’s do a conference. You organize it.

So initially it was myself and another mother, the other mother then dropped out the following year and he was great. He championed it enabled us to use the hospital facilities and he was really supportive and he brought on the board also a few people with personal experience who voluntarily just felt the opinion on the program and that kind of thing. So that consultant so long involved that I then just fell to me and the little motley group that we’ve got and we just get together and we just thrash out the program once with YC a year really.

It’s been very difficult and a lot of that unfortunately. But so that’s how it really came about. I separately say quite a number of years on just looking on to run it really on my end because it was too complicated doing it through the system.

So yeah, and we were able to use the hospital facilities going forward and really accommodating and helpful. It became a really has become a stop for event really. We’ve always aimed to provide really good quality information to raise awareness hopefully improve services in the long run and it’s the day of really mixed information.

I try to just get bits of whatever I think is interesting. Try to have something on a medical perspective, something on an educational perspective. We’ve always had speakers with lived experience right from the beginning which is quite new 18 years ago.

I don’t remember that many things where they had people with lived experience and that’s always been really popular and people have always commented on how helpful and insightful that is. So we definitely maintain that. In fact, we’ve extended it.

So yeah, that’s how it happened and now again this year we’ve got a remixed program really varied. It’s a full day. You can obviously drop in and out because it’s online which is probably one of the advantages.

We had a really good turnout last year. I believe we had about 400 devices online so the IT person said which was brilliant. Hopefully, there will be more this year.

And we’ve obviously got the good self-seeking, I know, but we’re very lucky that professors that Simon Baron Cohen has agreed to come on. Professor Francesca Hape. So Charlotte Moore has always helped the author and a journalist has always helped to… Is there a topic to the conference? Well, it’s called… Sorry, it’s called Autism and Hands-on Approach and actually the point is to cover a lot of different topics.

So we’ve got stuff about… We’ve got a talk on autism in women and girls this year. Okay. You’ve got yourself on living and working with autism.

We’ve got Professor Simon Baron Cohen talking about the patent seekers, how autism drives invention. We’ve got a psychiatrist from Switzerland, Dr. Mandy Barker talking about being creative in a therapeutic world, a holistic approach in neurodevelopmental diversity. And we’ve got a number of other talks about autism and ADHD, about a couple who are talking about being in a relationship with an autistic partner.

That’s Debra Wartman and Mark Berry. Debra is an experienced counselor, but she also is married to Mark who has a diagnosis of Asperger’s. We have a couple of kids who also have diagnosis.

So that’s interesting. And then we’ve got a talk about early targeted invention works by Dr. Catherine Aldridge, who is a very experienced consultant teaching language therapist. And we’ve got autism and eating disorders as well.

I’ve seen quite a few articles on autism eating disorders especially in women. Well, I’ve always felt there was something in that really and I’ve been very keen to cover that for a long time. So this year I’m really pleased that I’ve actually managed to find somebody.

I think we’re really good talking about it. And I think it’s acknowledged now. There are a lot of links between autism eating disorders possibly particularly anorexia, but maybe the whole spectrum.

So it’s a very complicated area. And I think obviously if you get, if you’ve got the diagnosis of autism, my understanding is that it slightly affects the therapy that is prescribed. So probably important to know about that.

We’ve got autism in police custody, keeping the noise down with Inspector Gayle Spruce, who also has a diagnosis of autism herself. During the day. What’s that about then about the art in the police? Is that to do with them? It’s about how, I think it’s going to be about how they manage the environment or trying to be accommodating to people with autism when they come into police custody.

So I think quite a lot of work is going on to improve that situation. I’m so pleased to say so. And I’ve also spoken to the autism reality experience because I went to visit a prison, I’ve been to visit a few prisons, but this one was for people that were sort of between 18 and I think it was 25.

I can’t quite remember now. And they basically wanted to show what it was like to go into a prison. So with reference to sensory issues, so they’ve created a film.

Not quite sure if it’s out yet, but what it’s like for somebody when they walk through, going into prison, and all the various different sounds are various different approaches that they’ve got to do. So yeah, so hopefully that will be shared fairly soon with prisons because apparently they’re saying there’s an increase of M.I.T. crime where a lot of our autistic individuals are involved because they’re easy targets. Yeah, I’m sure that is the case.

Yeah, so your conference, if people are interested, how can they book and where can they find it? Okay, so let’s say it’s sorted in the hands-on approach 9th of November. So you can find us online at www.autismahands-on-approach.co.uk You can follow us on Twitter at autism underscore hands-on Facebook at autism dash or hyphen hands-on-approach Instagram at autism.hands-on-approach You can email if you want even autism.hands-on-approach at gmail.com I can’t think of any other ways to… Okay, so that’s 8 autism hands-on-approach if I’ve supposed to be Google that it’ll pop up. You’ll definitely find something and you can just book online it’s a very straightforward way.

If organisations want to send more people than that then you can email me I can organise an invoice scenario as well, not a problem. And I’m joining you as well for question time. Well, we were hoping so unfortunately I think and honestly he’s just told me that he’s going to COP26 in Glasgow which is getting in the way which is very fortunate but I’m working on it I’m hoping if at least he can join us for a little bit that would be nice but he’s been really supportive actually He’s turned up a lot of times he’s been at a couple of autism events He’s genuinely interested and keen to improve things make management more friendly but he’s a very biggy guy.

So let’s talk about what do you do to relax? So obviously this is a show about mental health and wellbeing What type of things do you do to recharge your batteries? So for me I’ve done exercise and walking so what type of things do you like to do? Well I’m a big exerciser as well I love walking I like going to the gym and just getting on the machinery and putting my earphones in really so I just do a lot of that and my son James loves walking so that often speaks both of us quite well really both find that very chilling I just like hanging out with the kids and I like cooking as well very much So what type of things do you cook? That’s an on the spot question I’m not a complicated cook just a good home cooked food and we used to like roast chicken and all that but proper meat food you’re not allowed to have that anymore but I honestly do a lot of vegetarian everything really I’m not particularly I like vegetarian food I actually prefer vegetarian food but do you remember in lockdown lots of people were baking I’ve never seen so many cakes and biscuits I’m not interested in baking I’d say that my daughter’s turning to a very beautiful baker so that’s fine I just leave it to her Yeah they just have to clean up that well at 12 but anyway it’s always a bit of a mess but it’s very cute And having many workshops as well lined up after the conference do you do other things apart from the conference? Yeah so actually that’s something that’s come out during lockdown really that we have been well I have been running some Zoom workshops and the one that’s we’ve actually run it run it perhaps run it for the third time in January is Autism and Gender Identity and it’s a two-hour workshop which has really been very popular there’s a lot of interest in that we keep it quite small because we try to create a safe space for people to exchange ideas and questions Yeah I have a psychologist who’s expert in that but very knowledgeable in that area we give an overview of the sort of condition and a situation and it explains the terminology and all that sort of stuff When does that… because I know I have a friend that’s sort of good So the next one the next one I’m a conservative supplier shortly after this other is on the 17th of January at 10.30am 32nd and 12.30 so again if you’ve got any interest in that how much you’re making is just emailing at the autism team Yeah that’s a good thing because just going through that at the moment and talking about workshops we’ve got one at the charity as well that’s Paul Isaacs who’s one of my autism consultants so he’s doing one on autism and exposure anxiety so that’s the 23rd of November and that’s 11 until 12 so that’s free and exposure anxiety was first written about in nowhere 1991 as a syndrome of involuntary and compulsive avoidance diversion and retaliation responses a large selection of my first textbook autism and inside out approach in 1996 was dedicated to setting up strategies for managing even reversing exposure anxiety in 2003 I wrote the first full book on exposure anxiety so if you’re interested that Paul was a huge fan of Donna Williams and she wrote an awful lot about exposure anxiety so if you’re interested you can book your place through the charity website just to remind you it’s www.annakennedyonline.com and follow me on Twitter at Anna Kennedy One Anna Kennedy Online on Facebook or at Anna Kennedy OBE on Instagram so talking about events just to remind you of our autism hero award which is going to be so exciting again we had to miss it out last year so all of the nominations from last year came over to this year so the judges the poor judges had to read from every nomination and choose 36 finalists over 12 categories so that’s going to be happening on November the 20th at the Chelsea Harbour Hotel and I’m just going to read out to you the finalists that will be traveling down to London so personal achievement was Mont Brooks Kate Donnelly Grace Parr Young Person of the Year was Mariam Ahmed Bobby Truntley Alfie Boyne Support Group of the Year was Jane Green Chrissa Wadlow and Debbie Marshall Outstanding Community Debbie Marshall Julia Hooper Sutton EHCP Crisis Campaign Parent Care of the Year Lisa Jones Debbie Abberlow and Imogen Robson-Hemmings Sibling of the Year Lucy Gates Melanie Beckley Emily Maxfield Leading Business Teach Rex Declan O’Malley Busy Blanket Rachel Morgan Trimmer People’s Hero of the Year Julia Hooper Jane Green Tamaya Feig Online Social Network Molly Brooks Debbie Marshall The Kent Autistic Trust LifeChime Achieber Debbie Marshall Dr. Avadala and Natasha Britton and Education with Somerset School Adele Define James Matthew Flanagal So if you want to check out all those names of the short listeners because I know quite a few of the listeners nominated their person who they feel would go the extra mile would go the extra mile that’s again on the charity website just look under the events page under the Autism Hero Awards so on November the 20th if you want to come along get a three-course meal there’s entertainment we’ve got some of our autism talent performers that are going to be singing there’s going to be dancing and you’ll probably need some tissues because there’ll be a few tears when you hear some of the stories of some of our finalists and so yep that’s another exciting event I know my dear Lisa because we’ve done three events so close to each other she said never do that again never do that again but the thing was obviously they’re normally scattered out throughout the year but we thought we’re pushing back to the back of the year because we were thinking about hopefully this dreadful lockdown will be over by then so next year obviously we will be doing Autism’s Got Talent now so if you are interested in sending in your entry the entries are now open so it’s send it to Lisa.Robins spell R-O-B-I-N-S at AnnaKennedyOnline.com so if you’re a singer if you’re a dancer if you’re a musician if you’re a poet whatever it is that you think that you’ve got wow factor talent please send us in a YouTube link to your talent and also a short bio obviously you need to have a diagnosis of autism and then we will have the tough choice of choosing 20 finalists that will be performing on stage and then obviously we’ve got The Roadshow where we’re going to Cheshire next year so I am ambassador and patron for CHAPS which is Cheshire Autism Practical Support and we’re going to be doing a show with them so we collaborate with various different charities in the past we’ve collaborated with Kids R Us with Daisy Chain we’ve been to Essex we’ve been all over the show and we still want to go to more and more places to spread the word and show our just show what they can do they’re just so amazing I wish what I say to people is you have to be there to appreciate what I’m talking about and when people come to the show they always say it’s just so good at what you’re saying so yeah still I’m still in autism’s got talent mode it’s still in my head I’m still really living the experience and also I just wanted to remind you I’m also ambassador for Autism Anglia so they have a passport called My Autism Passport all about me which our charity funded it’s the passport will help you understand my autism and how to make adjustments for me there’s nothing worse than when you go to hospital appointments or various different appointments and you have to keep repeating yourself about all the various questions that you’ve been asked you have one of these passports you can either download them from Autism Anglia or you can buy them I think they’re something like £1.50 they were the author is Annie Sands who’s a good friend of mine and just to give you a little bit of an idea of what’s in the passport so on the first page you’ve got about autism autism is a lifelong condition which affects how a person interacts and communicates with other people and then it sort of breaks it down autistic individuals are likely to become anxious in social situations be over or under sensitive to noise smell light and touch like routines and consistency have difficulty communicating and processing and on that page you will put your name your national institution number your address your date of birth emergency contact name and a headshot of yourself the next page is got how can you help me so for example tick the statements below that apply to you so for example it could be contact my emergency contact who can give you an insight and how my autism affects me be specific and concrete in what you say and give me time to respond to questions do not ask me more questions while I’m processing the first question do check I have understood your question by asking me to repeat them back to you that’s very different and you can add a few notes at the bottom if you need to on the next page things that affect my ability to communicate so you can tick tapping on a keyboard might distract you too much information flickering very bright or strip lights sensitive to certain colors background noise or frequency other people cannot hear uneven flaws being touched closed eye contact sudden noises like a fire alarm or a drill again there’s notes at the bottom then on the next page you’ve got characteristics of my autism so tick statements below that apply to you so I have difficulty seeing another person’s perspective and likely to interpret from my own point of view I have difficulty staying on the subject in question these some a lot of these just so identify with both my sons I’ll give inaccurate information in order to stop people asking me questions I will talk about things that interest me irrespective of what questions I am being asked I will engage in repetitive stimming activities such as flapping my arms rocking and spinning and it goes on and again there’s notes at the bottom and the last two pages stress reducing method that may help and support me so remove any demands so these are things that you can tick provide a safe area where I can calm down again when we have autumns got talent we have a quiet area so if it gets a little bit overwhelming our performers can go into the area support and encourage me but do not put additional pressure on me give me clear cues and prompts what you want me to do allow me to stim which I can help me calm down because I know quite a few people that are trying to stop children and adults from stimming let me use a fiddle object which helps me to keep focused and all these fiddle objects don’t you know it’s not that day for everybody they think oh let’s get a fidget spinner and you know that’s going to keep my son occupied my son’s not interested in fidget spinner so if you’ve got to try and find the right fiddle object if you like or toy that suits the individual encourage me to use five four three two one technique below so take a deep breath five look at five things you see around you four acknowledge four things you can feel three listen for three things you can hear two say out loud two things you can smell one say one thing you can taste example toothpaste you cannot taste anything say there’s nothing sorry say one thing that is your favorite taste take another deep breath to end the exercise and then the last page is additional information that if you would like a personal statement by people involved in your care so this is a small document that you can carry around with you so if you’re interested in downloading it it’s on autism anglia or if you want to purchase one there’s something like £1.50 and you can get them from autism anglia I think this is a really useful book what do you think Tanya? Sounds fascinating yeah absolutely definitely was was having a look at that I know quite a few people when they go to hospital they get asked the same thing over and over again and they get to meet to meet some other professional you know that might be part of whatever it is that they’re doing then they have to repeat themselves again so at least if they have something like this it just takes a bit of stress away that you say read this this is the thing you need here you don’t need to keep asking questions absolutely absolutely I also wanted to add I forgot to say that Paul Isaacs is actually speaking at the conference as well you’re ambassador on autism and sensory perceptions so that should be really interesting I mean during the day as well we’re going to have a very active chat line so people feed in questions throughout the day and then we pull them off when we put them into the live Q&A panels that happen during the day as well so hopefully you’ll get responses from speakers when you’re posting questions yeah so Paul’s one of my autism ambassadors so he helps me with because we get a lot of people sending in questions or asking for advice or they just want to talk to someone so between Paul and I and then any legal questions that come through they go to my husband Sean who’s also on the autism spectrum and we have like a legal help line if you like if you have any questions that you might like to ask my husband Sean you can have a chat with you so yeah so I found that I would say during lockdown we’ve had more autistic adults asking for advice or just for a chat what have you sort of noticed have you noticed any changes before lockdown during lockdown and now we’re easing out of lockdown well what I’ve found from the people that I’ve spoken to here or that I know perhaps is just that some of them are living at home with autistic adults and with all the services and things that that have struck down during lockdown it was demanding and in fact the adults really want to leave home quite a lot of them they’re quite you know quite mature now some of them in the 30s and this is a you know a complicated area and it’s something really close to my heart setting up quality housing housing for life but for people with autism I think it’s something really important and there’s not enough good quality housing out there from what I can see and it’s a complicated process I don’t know how other people are finding it but I’m finding it a complicated process to get where you know something lined up for the future I think that’s an area that really needs a lot of work a lot of thought because I think there are some people living at home with elderly parents and actually they think as far as I can ascertain yeah so I think that’s a really big area and I also think from my personal experience challenging behaviour and sort of self-harm and that sort of behaviour is very complex as well and anybody who’s got any good suggestions about that that’d be helpful too Yeah we’re just starting on the process with my son Patrick because before lockdown we just got into the idea of I’ve been working now for three years I’m settled in the job that I’ve got and I’m thinking right Patrick it’s time for you to try and get a place of your own so we did start the process but then obviously it was lockdown and everything that was going on there it was just not the right time to do it was just too much anxiety so now we’ve started again so we’re starting to look at places and he’s I’m trying to get him used to going to my state agents you know and seeing what’s available which area you might think he might like to live all those sort of things so we’re just starting that process and just to remind people as well of my petition which is who’s going to look after my children when I’m no longer around it’s on change.org and basically there’s a lot of adults that are worried about when their mums and dads are no longer around who’s going to keep an eye out for them or trying to get a meeting well I did originally have a meeting with health and social care minister but the day that they chose was the day that I booked to go to Middlesbrough with my son Angelo and I hadn’t seen my mum for about 18 months and I’d already we always stay at a cabin for a long weekend so I just said can we rearrange the meeting so I’m waiting to hear but I’ve got something like 10 and a half thousand signatures so far so if you’d like to sign it’s www.change.org forward slash Anna petition and please sign the petition that would be grateful and then obviously the more signatures we get hopefully we will get that meeting rearranged again so we’re almost at the end we’ve just got a few minutes is there anything else that you wanted to add Tanya about? Not really no please just come and come and join our online day on the night of November as I said www.autismahandsonapproach.co.uk or follow us on Twitter autism underscore hands-on Facebook at autism hyphen a hands-on approach or Instagram autism dot a hands-on approach I think that’s awesome Who do you think the conference would appeal to? Yeah good question I really think we aim have a very mixed audience we’ve always had a very mixed audience we used to have constraints on that obviously when we were having it in a venue but now we’ve got flexibility so it appeals to parents it feels professionals from health education social care and we get a really really mixed mix about everybody from teaching assistants through to psychiatrists we get everybody so I think if you’re involved with autism in any way I think you’ll find something in there for you to be honest idea that’s great so we’ve got a couple of minutes left so what I’d like to do is just read it just a couple of more of our performers we had this year we had a lady that she was in her 60s her name’s Sky Boswell and when she first applied she said oh I might be too old and I said no it’s open it’s for everybody so it doesn’t matter as the youngest five and as old as however you want to be so I remember a couple of years ago we had a lady that was 44 that taught herself how to play the electric guitar on YouTube she was amazing she was into heavy metal but wow she was just so good and she taught herself so this lady loved Kate Bush so she was a big lover of Kate Bush and when she arrived she was very very nervous because she wasn’t quite sure what to expect and you know obviously with the age gap difference so she appeared in one of Kate Bush’s videos and sang at her last club convention and it was held at the Hippodrome for a thousand people but it was because it was Kate Bush fans so she wasn’t sure because our audience was a mixed bag they weren’t Kate Bush fans how they would be but they were amazing and they absolutely loved her and she loved the whole experience in the end so again the highlights video is going to be shared on the charity website and on our YouTube channel so please look out for it in the next couple of weeks so you can see all the performers and you can totally get what I’m talking about so I just want to say to you Tanya thank you again for joining me and for sharing about your family and for sharing about the conference and about the work that you’ve been doing so I wish you all the best and I’ll see you on November the 9th on the question and answers thanks so much thanks Alan