The UK National Autistic Society has published results of a survey, "I Exist", indicating that adults with autism in the UK are ignored and their needs are not being met. The survey results reveal a "stark and often desperate reality", with most adults with autism lacking necessary support and services and living ignored and in isolation.
Here in New Brunswick attempts are made to address the needs of adults with autism but they are, in many areas, grossly inadequate. Families whose adult members with autism live at home have inadequate support, staff in private group homes lack autism specific training, and we have no institutional level facilities to provide residential care for the most severely autistic who are not capable of living in a group home facility. In fact we export our autistic adults and youths to other provinces, even to the United States, in search of treatment.
In the UK and in New Brunswick we can do better for adults with autism, much better.
Here in New Brunswick attempts are made to address the needs of adults with autism but they are, in many areas, grossly inadequate. Families whose adult members with autism live at home have inadequate support, staff in private group homes lack autism specific training, and we have no institutional level facilities to provide residential care for the most severely autistic who are not capable of living in a group home facility. In fact we export our autistic adults and youths to other provinces, even to the United States, in search of treatment.
In the UK and in New Brunswick we can do better for adults with autism, much better.
autism
I decided to look at your blog after a very frustrating experience yesterday with Michelle Dawson on her QuickTopic Board (don't bother looking for it there - she deleted all the messages, but I have an email copy if you are interested). At a later time, if you are interested, I would like to discuss "The Misbehaviour of Michelle Dawson."
ReplyDeleteI am the father of a 26 year-old son with "low functioning autism" so I think I can relate to your concerns about adults with autism. At the moment I do not have much time to post, but I do wish to make a quick response to your statement that in New Brunswick "we have no institutional level facilities to provide residential care for the most severely autistic who are not capable of living in a group home facility." I wish to inform you that with adequate supports, every human being can be supported to live in the community, based on the actual experience over the past decades in a number of other places in the world. I will be glad to discuss with you and anyone else who is interested, how this can be done, which of course is a process that takes a lot of planning. But as you noted, in New Brunswick you do not have existing institutional level facilities - so I would suggest you start working now on community supports before Colon becomes an adult.
Oops! One small "typo" - my son Ben is 36 (thirty-six) years old - not 26. So I have been involved with "adults with autism" for a long time.
ReplyDeleteThanks for giving me an opportunity to comment on your blog. I will wait to see if others comment on this subject and then if appropriate comment again.